1923 Kanto: Japan’s last major Earthquake

Echoes From Japan’s Past With the massive quake and tsunami that struck Japan last week, the specter of another devastating event has returned: The 1923 Kanto earthquake, which shook the region around Tokyo, was the country’s last “big one.” The 7.9-magnitude quake reduced much of Tokyo to rubble, and as refugees tried to leave, firestorms [...]

Doing Evangelism together (2)

Why should we do evangelism relationally? Acts suggests several reasons: • to have fellowship (Acts 9:19, 26-28); • to have companionship (18:18; 19:29; 20:34; 27:1-2; 28:15); • to have protection (9:30; 17:15; 20:2-4); • to have encouragement (28:15); • to form an official delegation to attend the Jerusalem Council (15:2) and • to deliver famine [...]

Doing evangelism together

In our culture, the activity of evangelism is often atomized, and individualized. This fits in well with the prevailing worldview of Western Europeanized societies. The concept of celebrity feeds the illusion of individual triumph in areas of beauty, wealth and talent –Do you have the X factor? No one wants to face the fact of [...]

The ice cold war?

Considering the territorial factors in the Cold War, does this week’s news about melting ice caps suggest the possibility of an imminent “ice cold war”? Roger Howard explains:

A “letter to the Times”: the YouTube of the Crimea

In their range and number, the letters to the editor during the Crimean War were truly extraordinary.

Matthew Parris on Christian Mission in Africa

Matthew Parris is an atheist, and so gives this insight to something that is meaningful and effective because people care. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it’s Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump [...]

“Will I find faith on earth?” The new cultural divide

Britain’s new cultural divide is not between Christian and Muslim, Hindu and Jew. It is between those who have faith and those who do not. Stuart Jeffries reports on the vicious and uncompromising battle between believers and non-believers The Guardian Protesters from different faiths join to oppose proposed new regulations on gay adoption. Photograph: Martin [...]

Becoming the church

Isn’t it time we returned to biblical practices in our churches? John Piper has noted: So even though growth and upbuilding are from Christ, the head, it is the whole body that builds the body. And the word “whole” is important. The whole body builds the body. That point is emphasized in the words, “according [...]

Even the Prime minister sometimes has to stand naked

Expulsion from Paradise, by Michael Sandle, on display at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2007 I guess you’ve seen this in the news last week. It certainly says something about public perception of the UK’s involvement in a deeply unpopular war. The centre-piece of the Royal Academy of Arts.summer show is this enormous triptych, with the [...]

Wilberforce: “feelingly alive…”

  “If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.” – William Wilberforce, 1759- 1833, the British abolitionist and subject of the recent film Amazing Grace