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.
Politics USA
Trump and 'the most important issue': Immigration
Tony Bennett
Date posted: 23 Jun 2025
Rather like studying Scripture, context is so important.
In 2015, having glided down that gold escalator in Trump Tower in New York to announce his first presidential bid, Donald Trump was not a minute into the speech when he delivered this broadside against immigrants: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems … They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
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.
Ongoing concern in ‘new’ Syria
Luke Randall
Date posted: 21 Jun 2025
Uncertainty remains for Christians in Syria six months on from Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) overthrowing of Bashar al-Assad’s government. While they are meeting together, they remain concerned about the future under President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s rule.
Martin Parsons, CEO of The Lindisfarne Centre for the Study of Christian Persecution, believes a recent meeting between US president Donald Trump and al-Sharaa carries “seismic importance” for the future, with the first meeting between US and Syrian leaders in 25 years representing a huge shift in approach.
news in brief
Nigeria: Christians killed
Forty-two people have been killed in Christian communities in Taraba state, north-east Nigeria in a devastating attack by Fulani herdsmen. Attackers invaded homes and murdered residents, leaving destruction and burning houses in their wake, while hundreds of others fled the scene.
Morning Star News reports that the governor for the Karim Lamido Local Government Area has pledged to bring the perpetrators to justice and provide safety to the community, which has been left in ruins. Witnesses said that the “tragic” attacks have “brought untold pain and disruption” to their lives.
‘Evangelicals for Harris’ in late push for votes - but face struggle as vote looms
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 28 Oct 2024
Although many US evangelicals are backing Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has supporters among them too.
‘Evangelicals for Biden’ has rebranded as ‘Evangelicals for Harris’ in an effort to mobilise Christian voters for her campaign. The group argues that her faith ‘shines through in her clear Christian values displayed in her unwavering support for American families.’
Franklin Graham UK tour prompts support – and caveats
Milla Ling-Davies
Date posted: 26 May 2025
American missionary Franklin Graham, son of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, is bringing his evangelistic tour to the ExCel venue London this June – despite recently provoking concern among some UK evangelicals.
The event comes as part of Graham’s God Loves You Tour, which aims to partner with local churches to share “the simple message of God’s love”. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) are hoping to draw thousands to the venue, as they did when it was last held there in 2023.
Donald and the fig leaf
Ben Tannett
Date posted: 26 Feb 2025
Dear Editor
I hesitate to write anything about Donald Trump as it may quickly become out of date - he is proceeding at a frenzied pace. So I’ll remind readers of three assertions which were made about him long before the 2024 election. These are just examples, there are many others.
Firstly, Trump lies on an industrial scale (his false claim to have won in 2020 caused an insurrection). Secondly, his sexual immorality has long been public knowledge. Thirdly, it was asserted that he regularly cheated the contractors who worked on his properties (see James 5:4).
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.
Is the UK church ready for Trump 2.0?
Ben Chang
Date posted: 20 Jan 2025
Today sees the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States.
Over on this side of the pond, polling consistently confirms that most of the British public have a pretty dim view of Trump. At best, he is seen as a ridiculous clown who cannot string a sentence together. At worst, he is viewed as a wannabe autocrat who idolises Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. However, he won a resounding victory in the Presidential election and his party gained control of both the House and Senate.
Jimmy Carter funeral: a testimony to his 'deep' Christian faith
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 10 Jan 2025
For anyone who hadn’t appreciated that the late US President Jimmy Carter was a Christian with a deep faith and love for God, his funeral service on 9 January has left no doubt.
The BBC currently has a programme on famous names who died in 2023 called Lives Well Lived. The typical worldly measure of a life well lived is their achievements, wealth accumulation, status, and doing good. Viewers of Jimmy Carter’s funeral service and its attendees were offered a far more valuable measure of a life well lived: a higher godly standard.
After COP 29: evangelical scientist claims ‘history on our side’
Emily Pollok
Date posted: 22 Nov 2024
‘Gravity, history, and progress’ make the drive to clean and green energy unstoppable, says leading evangelical climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe as the COP 29 gathering concluded.
The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference began on 11 November in Baku, Azerbaijan and ended on 22 November.
Trump win: gospel triumph or tragedy?
Luke Randall & Emily Pollok
Date posted: 21 Nov 2024
Evangelicals across the United States and beyond are reacting to Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, with some believing he will protect religious freedoms. Others fear he will promote radical nationalism.
Trump has always portrayed himself as the candidate who would best protect Christians, and according to an NBC News exit poll, evangelicals in America played a crucial role in Trump’s victory; about 80% of white evangelicals voted for him, along with 67% of Latino evangelicals and 14% of black evangelicals.
news in brief
USA: 200 Bibles burned
Pastor Greg Locke of Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, told church members that the setting on fire of around 200 Bibles in a trailer near his church by an unidentified suspect on Easter Sunday is proof that Christianity is ‘under attack’ in the United States.
‘If you think Christianity is not under attack more than ever before in the United States of America, you’ve not been paying attention,’ Locke said.
Trump 2.0: evangelicals react
en staff
Date posted: 6 Nov 2024
Evangelicals and other Christians are digesting the news that Donald Trump is heading back to the White House for a second term.
Writing on social media platform x.com, Graham Nicholls, director of evangelical umbrella organisation Affinity in the UK, wrote today: 'Praying for the USA and the world as we transition to a new duly elected returning President of one of the most powerful nations in the world. Whoever you wanted to win, there's only ever one winner and He already won.'
Fear and disorientation as the world changes
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.