Opinion

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  • Middle East Opinion

    I have seen the raw footage of the October 7 attack - this is what I pray for

    By Opinion Contributor

    I recently attended a screening of raw footage of the October 7th, 2023, attacks in Israel. It was a spontaneous decision – the queue to get in was long, and I quietly prayed that if I got in, God would help me use it to potentially contribute a meaningful voice to the highly polarized and emotionally charged global debates – including among Christians – on what could possibly bring an end to the war and suffering in the Holy Land.

  • Europe Opinion

    How Long, O Lord?

    By Jeff Fountain

    Few of us imagined that the Ukrainian resistance would last long against the feared might of the Russian army. Memories were stirred of the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 when the vastly outnumbered Dutch army resisted for four days before surrendering on May 14, immediately after Hitler’s ruthless blitzkrieg destroyed the historic heart of Rotterdam.

  • Oceania Opinion

    Nil by force: a word on militaristic tropes in missions

    By Jay Mātenga

    I think missions influencers resort to militaristic tropes because, when it comes to the sharing of our faith, whether local or cross-cultural, we have a motivational problem. To get more believers ‘committed’ to evangelism, ministry, and missions, influencers too easily twist Scripture to promote a militant activism, casting the ‘great unwashed’, ‘pagan’, or ‘heathen’ as ignorant slaves of our enemy (sin, the powers of darkness, and the Devil) needing to be rescued (by force, if necessary, e.g.

  • Africa Opinion

    Language: a barrier or a bridge to people flourishing

    By Michel Kenmogne

    Irrespective of its status or prestige, each language represents somebody’s mother tongue. By this, I mean the first language through which they have been exposed to the world. It informs their sense of identity and provides them with the cultural categories by which they view the world and engage in it.

  • Europe Opinion

    Bound together

    By Jeff Fountain

    A giant three-metre-high replica of an ordinary torsion spring clothespeg arrested my wife and me while walking through a sculpture garden in New Zealand some time ago. 

  • Asia Opinion

    Sinicization: Culture or Politics?

    By Brent Fulton

    In his incisive Christianity Today article titled “Xi Jinping Is Not Trying to Make Christianity More Chinese,” Purdue University professor Fenggang Yang draws a distinction between Sinicization, or the cultural adaptation of religion to Chinese culture, and what he calls “Chinafication,” a more literal translation of the Chinese term Zhongguo hua (中国化) used in the current “Sinicization of religion” campaign.

  • Europe Opinion

    Welcome to the chaos of 2024!

    By Peter Lynas

    2024 is going to be messy – more crises, more elections and ongoing wars. There will also be incredible opportunities to speak truth and hope into some of the most controversial issues of our day. But will we as the UK church be distracted by division and bury our head in the sand? Or will we see the opportunity offered by the difficult questions of our day to extend wisdom, hospitality, and offer a hopeful way forward?

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