Premier Christian Newscast

Sexuality, persecution, abortion and mission: Has Christian journalism got it right?

Sadly, today’s episode will be the last episode of the Premier Christian Newscast. To wrap the show up, we looked back over the last two years at what stories and topics have come up the most. What has been making waves in church news? What issues are we unable to move on from? And what might this tell us about what is going to be hitting the headlines in the years to come? Has the Christian media got too distracted by culture war political nonsense, and missed the more important stories right under our nose? How do we faithfully go about trying to decide what to cover and what to ignore? We’ll be joined by Sam Hailes and Emma Fowle from Premier Christianity magazine to look back at what the Newscast feed tells us about the state of the church, and to consider what stories we expect to be keeping us busy throughout the rest of 2024 and into the future.

The General Election

All of the UK will be going to the polls soon in a general election, which is expected at some point in the autumn. After a drubbing in the recent local elections, Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are widely expected to be dumped out of office in Westminster too. And just as more and more Britons are abandoning the Tories, so too are Christians. This week we’re wondering how believers are thinking about the parties, the politicians and the policies ahead of going to the polls. Many in Westminster expect this to be a tumultuous and history-making election, but how engaged is the church this time round? Where do Christians stand on the big flashpoints and debates? Is there really any meaningful Christian vote for parties to lobby for? And what do the Christian activists in the main parties make of it all? Guests: • Andy Flanagan, Christians in Politics • Hannah Rich, Christians on the Left • David Burrowes, former Tory MP and now the Conservative Christian Fellowship • Elizabeth Jewkes, Liberal Democrat Christian Forum

Asylum seekers, baptism and the church

The horrendous attack on a mother and her children by Abdul Ezedi, an Afghan asylum seeker, in Clapham earlier this year sparked a ferocious row. A string of politicians and right-wing media outlets accused churches of giving asylum seekers like Ezedi bogus baptisms after they had fraudulently converted to Christianity to boost their arguments to not be returned to their home countries. But is any of this actually happening? What is actually happening on parishes and congregations up and down Britain which do minister to asylum seekers? And why have Christians become the lightning rod for politicians’ anger over the asylum system in the first place? Guests: • Guli Francis-Dehqani, the Bishop of Chelmsford • Krish Kandiah, director of the Sanctuary Foundation • Steve Tinning, public issues enabler for the Baptist Union • Emily Shepherd, CEO of Welcome Churches • Mike Coates, vicar of All Saints, Liverpool

Schism among the Methodists

It’s not just British denominations which are splintering under the weight of their divisions. The United Methodist Church in the United States has also gone through a painful five years of divorce, with up to one in four congregations choosing to leave. The crisis was, inevitably, precipitated by deep disagreements over LGBT issues including same-sex marriage. When a crunch vote in their assembly came, the conservatives won and yet it is the conservative churches which have left, some to a brand-new breakaway denomination. In some ways the split has been amicable and orderly, and yet it has also caused huge pain for others on both sides. What does the future hold, both for the conservative churches which have left and for those who remained? And is the path of mutually agreed separation a good model for other denominations experiencing similar fractures? Guests this week: - Tom Berlin, UMC bishop in Florida - Gregory Palmer, UMC bishop in Ohio - Timothy Tennent, president of Asbury Theological Seminary - Heather Hahn, assistant news editor for United Methodist News - Megan Fowler, religion journalist and contributing writer at Christianity Today

The future of children's ministry

It’s not just a toddler group. Emphasis on the ‘just’. That’s the title and message of a new report which urges churches to take their midweek parents and toddler groups more seriously. These groups are not just about toys on mats and beakers of juice for tired mums, but vital for children’s flourishing and also for drawing families into the wider church community. The report is one of a number of recent initiatives trying to reignite ministry with children, which had been hammered by the pandemic, where lots of young people lost touch with the church during lockdown and never came back. How we are doing at relaunching children’s ministry since then? Is it properly integrated with the rest of our church lives? And what about those thousands of churches that don’t really have any young people any more? Is Christianity becoming a religion for grown-ups only?