Christian climate scientists speak out
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Sep 2023
The summer heatwave across the northern hemisphere has seen almost uncontrollable forest fires break out from Canada to China, Algeria to Greece, as soaring, record temperatures hit the high-40°sC.
But as soon as the flames were doused, the question on many people’s minds was – to what extent are these record thermometer levels the result of human-made climate change?
Hot topic
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Dear Editor,
In response to Simon Marsh’s piece ‘Hot, hot and hotter still’ in September’s en, it is disturbing to see another article in the Christian press about a coming climate disaster. This seems to be a prevailing view today, but it is not universally held despite claims to the contrary. It is important for the sake of journalistic balance that different opinions are presented.
‘Why, why are we erasing their voices?’
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
The mass slaughter of Christians across parts of Nigeria, violence which has already claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced over two million people, is almost entirely fuelled by Islamist extremism.
This is the stark keynote conclusion of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief (APPG FoRB)’s new report Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide? Three Years On, which has just been launched in parliament. It features contributions from a range of 47 Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), think tanks, journalists, academics and charities.
Word on the Wash ponders Lazarus
Anne Roberts
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
More than 40 churches were represented at this year’s ‘Word on the Wash’ – an annual Bible-teaching event held in King’s Lynn, Norfolk.
Speaker Phil Moore (see photo) expounded the story of Lazarus in John chapter 11, applying this to the church in Britain ‘returning to life’.
Encouragement in Wales
Stuart Bell
Date posted: 1 Nov 2023
Bishop Stuart Bell of the GAFCON-affiliated Anglican Convocation in Europe (ACE) writes: Archbishop Ben Kwashi, General Secretary of GAFCON, the global Anglican movement, was the guest of the Evangelical Fellowship of the Church in Wales meeting with Anglican leaders for 24 hours (28-29 September) at the Hookses, the retreat of the late John Stott in Dale, Pembrokeshire.
In one session he spoke of what God is doing more widely in the Anglican communion and in another he gave encouragement from the Scriptures and from his own experience that we should stand firm. ‘We have nothing in Nigeria’, he said, ‘so if we give up Christ then we would have less than nothing; whereas if you in the West were to give up Christ you still would have your comfortable lifestyle.’
Keswick: ‘My conversations online with AI’
Ros Clarke
Date posted: 1 Aug 2023
Have you experimented with ChatGPT or Google Bard? These two extraordinary chatbots based on large language models can have ‘conversations’ about anything and everything.
It is like an interactive form of Wikipedia, a helpline, a travel guide, a review site, and much, much more. The conversations can mimic ordinary human chat to an incredible degree. They were very excited to hear all about my new dog and asked sensible questions, though it was a bit like talking to a child who has just read a book and wants to list all the facts they have learned.
Climate deal lacks cash, says evangelical
Iain Taylor
Date posted: 1 Jan 2023
A key pact made at the COP27 Climate
Summit
in Egypt doesn’t have enough
money behind it to make it work, according
to an evangelical climate expert.
Andy Atkins, chief executive of green
Christian organisation A Rocha, said of the
‘Loss and Damage Agreement’ – designed to
compensate poorer countries suffering from
climate change:
earth watch
Rivers of filth are flowing
Simon Marsh
Date posted: 1 Jun 2023
Is cleanliness next to godliness? Apparently, this phrase may have originated with John Wesley who thought that being a Christian was no excuse for slovenliness.
Although many of us took great care with cleanliness during the pandemic, these days we don’t naturally associate hygiene with being a Christian, despite all the Old Testament laws on cleanliness. Maybe we’re all too aware of Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees who were obsessed with the ritual hygiene laws, and have rightly taken to heart the importance of being spiritually clean. Pharisee alert over, that doesn’t mean we should neglect matters of personal or domestic hygiene.
Pros and cons of coal
Date posted: 1 Jun 2023
Dear Editor,
In making the case for the creation of the first new deep-mined coal mine in 30 years, in Cumbria, Roland Morris criticised those who have ‘the least understanding of’ the principles underlying climate science. Unhappily, he himself obviously doesn’t understand that the ‘Case for Cumbrian mine [is] undermined by doubt over UK market for coking coal. Sulphur content of the coal could mean British companies are unable to use it’ (Emma Gatten, The Daily Telegraph, 1 March 2021). As a result the Telegraph concluded (8 December 2022), that ‘The case for the Woodhouse Colliery to be allowed to start production isn’t just flimsy, it’s non-existent’. The Conservative peer, Lord Deben, Chair of the government’s own Climate Change Committee, has described the proposal as ‘absolutely indefensible’.
politics & policy
Get out there, believer...
Tim Farron
Date posted: 1 Dec 2023
A general election is on the horizon. The electoral machine is starting to whir into a frenzy that won’t stop until whenever polling day lands.
Elections mean more than just a reshuffling of politicians or technical adjustments to the nation’s bank account. New governments shape the future. From the big commitments, like tackling the climate crisis, to the small, like promising to save the village post office. Elections are a moment for parties to set out their vision.
Jesus in focus
Hugh Lowries
Date posted: 1 Apr 2023
Book Review
SMUGGLING JESUS BACK INTO THE
CHURCH:
How the church became worldly and
what to do about it
Read review
Pros and cons of coal
Date posted: 1 Apr 2023
Dear Editor,
I was rather disappointed by the ‘Earth Watch’ article in the February edition of en. The whole question of climate change involves complex scientific principles. And sadly those who make the most noise in the media have the least understanding of these principles. The result is that money is wasted on projects which have minimal effect on the planet as a whole.
‘I thought, wow, that is three seismic events in one year...’
John Woods
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Andrew Wilson is based in Eastbourne and serves as the Teaching Pastor at King’s Church London.
Andrew will be familiar to many from his books, including The God of All Things and 1 Corinthians for Today, the Think Theology website, and his regular columns in US magazine, Christianity Today. Our Reviews Editor John Woods was pleased to have the opportunity to chat with Andrew about his latest book Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West, which is now hot off the press from Crossway.
Economic terror
Date posted: 1 Oct 2023
Dear Editor,
‘How should we respond to the world’s poorest?’, asked Justin Hall (en September). We should ‘give and continue to give’ was his answer, and he has a point, since, as Jim Wallace, put it in relation to Matthew 25.31-46: ‘People will be stunned to discover they will be judged, not on the basis of right doctrine, personal piety or sexual ethics, but on how they treat the poor.’ But unhappily, as I stated when Tearfund took me to Tanzania and Zambia in 2011: ‘We have these great injustices, that are grinding down entire generations, across whole continents. The idea that we can rectify [extreme poverty, etc.] without getting major ‘structural’ changes, is delusion.’
earth watch
Cumbrian coal mine
Simon Marsh
Date posted: 1 Feb 2023
A few weeks before Christmas, controversy exploded in the environmental world when the government gave planning permission for a coalmine in Whitehaven, Cumbria. It would be the first new coalmine in the country in 30 years.
Now the UK would not be what it is today without coal, a bountiful source of concentrated energy which has been exploited since Roman times. Plentiful supplies powered the Industrial Revolution and led to the creation of close-knit mining communities from the South Wales Valleys to the Clyde.
