search

Martyn Whittock

Date posted: 18 Feb 2025

Well, we are roughly a month into the Trump presidency and the character of the new White House is becoming very clear.

Although I have a track record of sounding the alarm regarding Donald J. Trump, in the New Year of 2025 I was trying to be quite balanced on a number of occasions. In one column I pondered whether we would get ‘Trump unleashed’ or ‘Trump lite’? That I even suggested the latter was a sign that I thought it might be possible: lots of aggressive noise but not the political meltdown that many (myself at times) feared. A few weeks in, I would like to amend that brave optimism on my part. It is ‘Trump unleashed.’

John Brand

Date posted: 28 Mar 2025

Over the years, I have become more and more convinced that, from a human perspective at least, the most important factor in determining the growth and fruitfulness of the local church is leadership.

I have studied and analysed a large number of churches that have split, closed or gone into maintenance mode, and almost without exception the problem can be traced back to a leadership issue – either a lack of leadership, the wrong people in leadership, the wrong exercising of leadership or the wrong attitude towards leaders on the part of the congregation as a whole.

Joel Knight

Date posted: 11 Mar 2025

Much of the response to Donald Trump’s presidency from Christians in the UK has centred on ethical assessment. Christians rightly recognise that character matters and have a concern for the disadvantaged and disenfranchised.

Moral clarity is indeed a gift Christians can offer society. And yet, discussions like this risk reducing conversations to comments from one group saying, "We need to morally condemn this thing Trump’s done," whilst others respond, "This thing he's done is good."

Martyn Whittock

Date posted: 19 Mar 2025

As Christians, we know that “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9).

And yet we also know that what is required is more than the absence of conflict, as important as that is. For justice, wholeness and restoration are also values that are deeply embedded in scripture. The Greek-speaking writers of the New Testament used the Greek word eirene to translate Hebrew shalom and communicate its values, derived as they are from a root denoting ‘wholeness,’ ‘completeness.’ This reminds us that, as Christians, we need to look at the content of peace and what it brings. Which brings us to the recent conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

David Singeisen

Date posted: 4 May 2025

A response to a previously-published en article by Rhys Laverty which was entitled "In Defence of Trump"

In October 1922, George Orwell stepped on board the SS Herefordshire, on his way to his new life as an Indian Imperial Policeman. It was to be a short career - he resigned in 1928 to commit himself to writing.

Yet it contained one formative moment. In his short essay ‘Shooting the Elephant’, Orwell recalls the exact day he realised how powerless his role actually was. A runner had been sent for him with this message: a runaway elephant was causing damage, could he come and shoot it? Orwell arrived on scene to find not a rampaging beast, but a docile creature munching on grass. He shot it nonetheless. Not to save property, or people, but because he didn't want to look like a fool in front of the native Burmese. He was officially there as the righteous deliverer of British imperial power and justice. In fact he was a lone marionette, at the mercy of the popular mood and pressures of his role.

Dan Wells

Date posted: 14 Oct 2025

The first sign was a hand-written note and a whisper in the ear of the American President. Indirect negotiations between Israel and Palestine had yielded fruit. Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for peace in the Middle East could be the basis for a serious and lasting end to the conflict in Gaza.

It came two years and two days after the incident that started the war: Hamas’ devastating attack on 7 October 2023 that killed over a thousand Israelis. As Israel then attacked and invaded the Palestinian territory of Gaza, it has resulted in many thousands more deaths. The war has also led to a humanitarian crisis within Gaza leaving people without food, shelter and clean water.

Rhys Laverty

Date posted: 2 Apr 2025

One thing most British evangelicals have in common with the majority of their fellow countrymen is a shared dislike of Donald Trump. What’s more, many of us experience bafflement at Trump’s popularity among our American evangelical cousins.

I do not share this dislike and bafflement, however. As a Brit, my attitude toward American politics is largely "not my circus, not my monkey." But I want to offer a defence of Trump. And not just of why people may have voted for him back in November 2024, but why they can feel justified in having done so six months later.

Jenny Taylor

Date posted: 11 Nov 2025

When top BBC journalist and Christian Robin Aitken put together a dossier of what he felt were glaring examples of biased broadcasts, and sent it to the then Director General and Board of the BBC in 2007, he knew his career was on the line. What he had not expected – as a BBC executive and flagship Today Programme reporter - was to be ignored completely.

Instead of addressing the message, they pensioned him off.

Tim Farron

Date posted: 17 Oct 2025

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.

Ryan Burton King

Date posted: 18 Aug 2025

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.

Tim Farron

Date posted: 25 Jun 2025

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".