Ten questions with: Israel Oluwole Olofinjana
en staff
Date posted: 9 Jun 2025
Israel Oluwole Olofinjana is director of One People Commission, part of the Evangelical Alliance.
He is a Baptist minister and has led two multi-ethnic Baptist churches and an independent charismatic church. He is the founding director of Centre for Missionaries from the Majority World, a mission network initiative that provides cross-cultural training to reverse missionaries in Britain. He is a consultant to the executive team of Lausanne Europe, advising them on matters related to diaspora ministries in Europe.
the ENd word
From fed up to fed
Jon Barrett
Date posted: 9 Jun 2025
There was a time when I got a bit fed up with the 23rd psalm.
Admittedly, it’s not a great way to feel about a piece of Scripture, but I’d come to associate the psalm almost entirely with funerals of unbelievers. While an Anglican minister, before moving to the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC), I conducted many such funerals, and the default hymn choice for the generation of non-churchgoers I was burying was Abide With Me and The Lord’s my Shepherd, the latter always sung to the tune of Crimond.
Gateway to the south for new church plant
en staff
Date posted: 30 Apr 2025
Balham in London was once famously described by the late comedian Peter Sellers as the “gateway to the south” in a much-loved comedy parody of American travelogues.
Now decades later those words are proving prophetic as Christ Church Balham (CCB) seeks to reach out and plant a new church some six miles to its south. CCB is part of both the Co-Mission reformed church planting movement and the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE).
everyday theology
Bibliolatry? Us? Really?
Michael Reeves
Date posted: 4 Jun 2025
The reason why evangelicals treat Scripture as their supreme authority is because it is the word of God. In other words, evangelicals believe in what is traditionally called the “inspiration” of Scripture.
Today, the word “inspiration” can be a little misleading, as if Moses, Paul, and Luke simply felt enthused one day and started scribbling. That is not at all what is meant! By inspiration is meant what Paul teaches Timothy when he writes of how “from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings … All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:15-17).
evangelicals & catholics
Mission impossible?
Leonardo De Chirico
Date posted: 1 Apr 2024
Evangelicals have known for centuries that Rome is a ‘mission field’.
It is no coincidence that as soon as the breach of Porta Pia opened in 1870 (when Rome was liberated from Papal power and the Pontifical State ended), Bibles and Christian tracts were immediately smuggled in to further the evangelisation of the city. Rome was a mission field because it prevented the free circulation of God’s word in the vernacular language and suppressed any attempts to bring about a Biblical reformation.
The ‘black hole’ at the centre of the Church of England
John Dunnett
Date posted: 28 May 2025
It is easy to think that the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) can is being perennially “kicked down the road”.
However, en readers are invited to note that we are about to enter a season in which Diocesan Synods across the Church of England are being invited to hold a special discussion on the proposals. Make no mistake – these discussions will be used to give “ballast” to the project – and the juggernaut will lumber on.
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.
Myanmar: Christians acting after quake
Luke Randall
Date posted: 25 May 2025
Churches and mission partners have sprung into action to support the relief effort in Myanmar following the catastrophic earthquake which shook the nation last month. However, military control and violence still persists amid stories of gospel opportunity.
The southeast Asian country was devastated by the 7.7 magnitude quake which has killed more than 3,600, and the nation’s church community has crossed denominational divides to support the relief effort.
Reformed scholar Gordon Wenham dies
en staff
Date posted: 25 May 2025
Tributes are being paid to renowned Biblical scholar Gordon Wenham, who has died.
Wenham, born in 1943, was a Reformed British Old Testament theologian and writer, and was once described by US academic Tremper Longman as “one of the finest evangelical commentators today”.
Ministry to farmers: sowing and growing
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 24 May 2025
A Christian association is seeking to fill a reported gospel need in farming communities.
Tony Baskerville, Cheshire-based tenant farmer on the Rode Estate, Scholar Green, and elder at Grace Church, Sandbach, says that farmers are feeling increasingly marginalised. “There is a tremendous opportunity to reach out to them in genuine Christian love,” said Baskerville.
New college with Christian aims and ethos launches
Lydia Houghton
Date posted: 23 May 2025
In response to the increasingly prevalent liberal and progressive ideologies appearing in universities, a “new and unique” Christian college has been launched.
Selden College will be based in Oxford and has a twofold vision: to recover the heritage of Christian higher education, and to glorify God in this arena.
Is this the biggest threat to evangelicalism today?
Russell Moore
Date posted: 23 May 2025
Any organisation— business, ministry, school, whatever —typically asks what the biggest threats are to its mission. The assumption behind that exercise is that the most dangerous obstacles are those that one never sees coming.
Consider for a moment that the biggest threat to evangelical Christianity might not be any of those about which we argue and strategise — not secularisation or sexuality debates or political captivity, or institutional collapse or perpetual scandals or fragmentation and polarisation.
How to make training available for all church members
Date posted: 23 May 2025
Dear Editor,
An en reader wrote recently: “I’m interested to know why there is very little training of Christians in general,” (en letters, March 2025). Great question! It hasn’t always been thus; in the church’s history there have been times when intensive training for all believers – not just for pastors and leaders – has been a high priority. Knowing God is an eternal and joyful task, and being learners and lovers of God is core to our identity as His people.
Victims in US shooting 'were Messianic believers'
en staff
Date posted: 22 May 2025
The two victims of the antisemitic shooting in the US were Messianic believers, reports state.
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim have been named as the victims of the Wednesday night shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC.
Nigeria: More than 3,000 killed
Luke Randall
Date posted: 22 May 2025
Over a hundred Christians have been murdered in a series of brutal attacks by Fulani herdsmen in Plateau State, Nigeria in recent weeks, with Open Doors conservatively estimating that across northern Nigeria more than 3,100 have been slaughtered in the last year.
Alongside those murdered, thousands of Christians have been left displaced, which Henrietta Blyth, CEO of Open Doors UK and Ireland, explained is problematic during the current rainy season, as many will have no way to care for their families or provide food.
Is singleness undervalued?
Date posted: 16 Apr 2025
Dear Editor,
How I appreciated the article sent in by Rani Joshi on being single (March en). I am a retired, female, missionary who was (I think) well cared for by my church while serving overseas. Since I have returned it’s been quite different.
Tyndale: 500 years of God's Word in the language of the everyman
What do you celebrate in life? What milestones and anniversaries make their way onto your family and social calendars?
These tend to be the moments that mark our lives, that testify to the special moments we long to recall and remember; for others to reflect on after our time on Earth is done. The anniversaries and moments that form our life’s legacy in this world.