PODCAST · news
Premier Christian Newscast
by Premier Christian
The podcast, brought to you by Premier, which takes you deeper into the stories impacting Christians around the world. Each week we’ll dig into a particular issue in the church world and go behind the headlines, hearing from those directly involved, experts, theologians, activists, journalists and others to make sense of the story and why it matters.
Episodes
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How can the church respond to Christian Nationalism?
Premier journalist Anna Rees Green asks how the church can respond to Christian Nationalism in the UK.
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Does Christian Nationalism shape our politics?
In the second part of this series, Premier journalist Anna Rees Green explores how the language of Christian Nationalism shows up in UK politics.
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What is Christian Nationalism?
Join Anna Rees Green, a Premier Christian News, Multi-Media Journalist, as she interviews leading voices from all areas of the political and faith spectrum. Welcome to 'Christian Nationalism: Faith and the flag in Britain'
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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...
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The consultation and the compromise: Gay marriage and the Baptist Union
It is not just the Church of England and the Catholic Church which has been wrestling with divisions over same-sex marriage in recent years. The Baptist Union is also split between those who believe God affirms gay marriage and those who hold to a traditional opposition to it. Yet unlike other...
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What's the point of ecumenism?
Ecumenism. Even the word itself is probably putting some of you off right now. A tiresome bit of churchy jargon that has no relevance for your church or spiritual life, right? But working for unity across churches and denominations is for some a genuine passion, an urgent priority, even a...
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Faith in the beautiful game
Many of England’s biggest football clubs – today some of the country’s largest entertainment businesses – were originally started by local churches 150 years ago. Fascinatingly, the connections between Christianity and football are not solely a historical quirk either. There are Christians…
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Gay blessings in the Catholic Church
Just before Christmas, the Catholic Church surprisingly announced priests could offer pastoral blessings to same-sex couples for the first time. The announcement has been a jolt of energy to the church, delighting liberals who have been quick to publicise their blessings, and equally infuriating...
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Money, politics, power and the church: The concerning tweets of Sir Paul Marshall
Almost nobody has heard of Sir Paul Marshall until a few weeks ago. But, thanks to his Twitter account, the multi-millionaire hedge funder and media mogul has become briefly famous, or perhaps infamous. An investigation has revealed Marshall had a private Twitter account which had liked and...
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After the lament, action? Racism in the Church of England
After the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, the Church of England embarked on a racial reckoning just like so many institutions. This produced a landmark report and a new racial justice unit. But more than three years on, has any progress been made in dismantling...
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Is freedom of speech really under threat?
A Christian gospel singer was approached by the police while busking in central London. In a video of the conversation, one of the officers tells the singer she is not allowed to sing church songs outside of church grounds, and later sticks her tongue out. For many of those furiously sharing this...
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Christians in Iran
Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the government of Iran has sought to tightly control its small Christian minority and suppress the spread of Christianity throughout the population. But the Women Life Freedom anti-government protest movement has rocked the Islamist regime. Millions of…
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Soul Survivors
The story which dominated the UK church world last year was undoubtedly the revelations about Mike Pilavachi and Soul Survivor. But while the C of E’s investigation into him confirmed he had acted inappropriately at the Watford church he led, the story has often been veiled in vague terms and...
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Why do people give up on church?
Christians spend an awful lot of time thinking about how and why people join the church. But we rarely consider the opposite – all of those who leave. Every year, an entirely uncounted number of people give up on going to church. Some continue to believe and practice faith outside a worshipping...
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Tim Keller, Soul Survivor, safeguarding and gay blessings: 2023 in review
Abuse scandals. Famous deaths. A lot of reports. And a even more arguing about same-sex relationships. 2023 was a busy year for church news, and 2024 is already shaping up to be more of the same. But before the last 12 months is totally swamped by what’s already kicked off this year, let’s take a...
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Israel and Gaza
Ever since October 7th, the world has been transfixed with horror at the violence and war unfolding in Israel and Gaza. First the brutal Hamas terrorist attack which left over a thousand dead and hundreds more snatched as hostages. Then the devastating Israeli bombing campaign, which has killed...
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How to save Britain's crumbling village churches
In France, Emmanuel Macron has launched a new fund to raise hundreds of millions of euros to pay for the preservation and renovation of ancient church buildings across the French countryside. The move has excited church conservation types on this side of the Channel, as a possible model to follow...
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The surprising conversion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the famous atheist and scourge of Islam, has suddenly announced she has now become a Christian. Many in the church have reacted with excitement that a prominent anti-religious voice has switched sides. But others have been scornful, noting her article explaining the conversion...
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The Catholic Synod
It’s not only the Church of England that has been having big synods recently. Throughout October, hundreds of bishops and others from the Catholic Church gathered in Rome for their own synod. But unlike the regular twice-yearly meetings the C of E has had for decades, this synod is a much larger,...
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Prayers of Love and Faith
Last week was a momentous one in the long-running civil war over same-sex relationships in the Church of England. Just like in February, a session of the General Synod – the church’s elected parliament – was almost entirely focused on scrutinising the bishops’ plans to offer formal services of...
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Halloween
How to handle 31 October and the spooky festivities it prompts across society is a topic which has divided the church in recent years. Some Christians abhor Halloween while others embrace it. What for the wider world is a harmless bit of fun involving dressing up and sweets, to many believers is…
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The church under attack in Nicaragua
The increasingly dictatorial government of President Daniel Ortega has turned its oppressive gaze onto the Catholic Church in Nicaragua in recent years. Angered by the church sheltering anti-government protesters in 2018, the state has intimidated, harassed, detained and exiled numerous church...
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Jazz nights, WhatsApp, and ‘poverty of heart and spirit’: Church planting in a post-Christian city
Europe is often described as the world’s first post-Christian continent. In what was the cradle of Christendom, a tidal wave of secularisation has swept through from the post-war era onwards. But while mainline and established denominations – whether Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox - have if...
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Can the church end poverty for good?
17 October marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Eight years ago the UN set itself the ambitious target of eliminating severe poverty globally by 2030. But despite almost a century of steady progress, numbers of people living on less than $2 a day have actually started...
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21st Century Martyrdom
“Martyrs are more numerous in our time than in the first centuries: they are bishops, priests, consecrated men and women, lay people and families, who in the different countries of the world, with the gift of their lives, have offered the supreme proof of charity.” Those were the words of Pope...
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What are our vicars really thinking?
Mostly, we can only guess what clergy in the Church of England think about any number of hot button issues, but last month The Times conducted a fascinating survey of 1,200 serving vicars, rectors and curates. For the first time in about a decade, we can dig into a much more representative…
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Harassment in the Holy Land
Christian pilgrims have been visiting Jerusalem and the Holy Land for centuries, trying to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. But in recent years, there has been a disturbing rise in incidents of harassment and abuse against Christians by Jewish Israelis. Some pilgrims have been spat on in the…
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Small boats, Rwanda and welcoming the stranger: the church amid the politics of migration
Immigration is never far from the headlines these days. Whether it’s the government’s highly controversial plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda, the so far unsuccessful efforts to stop migrants crossing the Channel on small boats, or even the scheme set up almost overnight to bring in hundreds...
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Covid-era church closures reconsidered
‘Prohibiting people from worship and communal religious exercise is profoundly illiberal and illegitimate.’ Those are the words of the former EU Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief, Jan Figel. The Slovakian has launched a legal case against his own government at the European Court of...
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Drag queens in church?
Men have dressed up as women for thousands of years, but as you’ve probably noticed, drag is having a particular moment right now. Drag races are prime time TV fodder and drag artists are everywhere in popular culture. And the church is no different. In recent months a worship song by a Christian...
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Ethnic diversity in church
It’s pretty well known that most churches in Britain are largely filled with white faces. Clearly there are hundreds of thousands of believers from other ethnic backgrounds, but on the whole they tend to worship in separate churches. In an era when we are more and more aware of racial injustice…
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ChatGPT: Coming to a church near you?
At a recent Protestant convention in Germany an entire church service – liturgy, prayers, psalms, and sermon – was written and delivered by AI software. Around the world ministers and Christian techies are experimenting with tools such as ChatGPT to see what the latest technology can do when...
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Unbanked: Are conservative Christians getting locked out of our financial system?
Financial institutions are guilty of discriminating against Christians. That’s the claim of Anglican vicar Richard Fothergill and charity exec Mike Davidson, both of whom are prominent Christians who have recently had their bank accounts closed. They argue banks are trying to force those with...
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Safeguarding in crisis in the Church of England
The work of keeping children and vulnerable adults safe from harm and abuse in church has never been a more central part of the Church of England’s remit. Yet in its efforts to do right by victims and build ever more robust policies to root out abusers, the church has managed to get itself in a...
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What ever happened to revival?
The recent Asbury Revival prompted huge excitement among many British charismatics and Pentecostals. But it has also prompted some uncomfortable questions, including why isn’t this happening more over here? When the Charismatic Renewal movement hit the UK in the 1980s, there was a moment when...
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Climate activism and the church
Recently, the Church of England announced that its multi-billion pound funds would no longer invest in any fossil fuel companies. For years the Church had tried to use their position as shareholders in companies including BP, Shell, Total and ExxonMobil to nudge them towards cutting emissions and...
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Fired, prosecuted, banned: Is Joshua Sutcliffe the most persecuted 33-year-old in Britain?
Joshua Sutcliffe, it seems, cannot stop getting into trouble. The Christian teacher has been fired twice from schools and also prosecuted for street preaching during the pandemic lockdown. And now, he has been banned from teaching anywhere for two years by the Teachers Regulation Agency for...
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The Windrush scandal
Seventy-five years ago this week, the HMT Empire Windrush docked in the UK, bringing 800 migrants from Caribbean nations to their new lives in Britain. But the anniversary is a bittersweet one the British Caribbean community thanks to the lingering aftermath of the Windrush scandal, which saw...
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The state of sex education in schools
Graphic lessons on oral sex, how to choke your partner safely, and the existence of 72 different genders. According to the Christian MP Miriam Cates, these are some of the things appearing in sex education classes up and down the country. According to her campaign, a radical progressive ideology...
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The end of hatch, match and despatch?
Churches have been holding baptisms, weddings and funerals for the people of Britain for well over 1,500 years. But in recent decades the numbers of those choosing to hold these pivotal life moments inside a church building have been plummeting sharply. In this week's episode we discuss whether...
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Gafcon in Kigali: A struggle for the future of Anglicanism
Last month, the Rwandan capital of Kigali was the unlikely host of a gathering which will shape the future of the world’s third-largest Christian denomination – the Anglican Communion. Hundreds of conservative and evangelical delegates from across the world met in Kigali under the banner of…
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Crowning a Christian King
The coronation service was unmistakably first and foremost a service of Christian worship. Charles came not to be commissioned into a constitutional role, but to anointed into a sacred, almost priestly, calling. And yet despite all this, in many ways, this month’s coronation was perhaps the UK’s...
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Spyware, CCTV, firewalls and AI: Persecution in the digital age
Believers living under repressive regimes or surrounded by violent extremists are still tragically subject to traditional persecution – imprisonment, physical attack, verbal threats and harassment, and even death. But increasingly persecution comes via the internet, on social media platforms, and...
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Does government do God?
“Without faith, places of worship and people of faith, this country would be poorer, blander, and less dynamic. Faith is a force for good, and the Government should do more to both understand and release the potential of this fantastic resource.” Those are the words of Colin Bloom, the…
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Church attendance after the pandemic
A new survey of more than a thousand churches has concluded weekly attendance has dropped by about 22% on average since before the pandemic. Intriguingly, the research also suggested a large part of this decline was because churches had cut the number of services they offered during the lockdowns...
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Faith in the BBC
Last month, staff at BBC local radio stations went on strike in protest at major cuts heading their way. Among locally-produced shows due to be scrapped to make millions of pounds of savings are Sunday services and religious broadcasting, mostly to be replaced by programming produced nationally....
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
The podcast, brought to you by Premier, which takes you deeper into the stories impacting Christians around the world. Each week we’ll dig into a particular issue in the church world and go behind the headlines, hearing from those directly involved, experts, theologians, activists, journalists and others to make sense of the story and why it matters.
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Premier Christian
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Premier Christian Newscast have?
Premier Christian Newscast currently has 87 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Premier Christian Newscast about?
The podcast, brought to you by Premier, which takes you deeper into the stories impacting Christians around the world. Each week we’ll dig into a particular issue in the church world and go behind the headlines, hearing from those directly involved, experts, theologians, activists, journalists and...
How often does Premier Christian Newscast release new episodes?
Premier Christian Newscast has 87 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Premier Christian Newscast?
You can listen to Premier Christian Newscast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Premier Christian Newscast?
Premier Christian Newscast is created and hosted by Premier Christian.
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