Premier Christian Newscast

Church attendance after the pandemic

1 May 2023
35:44

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 numbe...

Faith in the BBC

24 Apr 2023
39:25

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 b...

Still good news for the poor?

17 Apr 2023
24:06

Denominations are much quicker to close down churches based in poorer areas than those serving the rich. That’s the headline finding a report from the charity Church Action on Poverty, which scrutinised five denominations in Greater Manchester to exa...

Christian celebrity culture

3 Apr 2023
31:53

It’s hard to spend any time in the church these days without constantly coming up against so-called Christian celebrities. Whether it’s worship leaders, authors or big-name pastors and speakers, it seems the entire infrastructure of the church relies...

Pope Francis, ten years on

27 Mar 2023
37:43

Almost exactly ten years ago, on 13 March 2013, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio became Pope Francis. In the subsequent decade, this previously obscure Argentinian cleric has revolutionised the papacy while steering the Catholic Church through sweeping refor...

Blasphemy in Pakistan

13 Mar 2023
31:05

In January, Pakistan’s parliament passed through tough new blasphemy laws. Already boasting some of the strictest prohibitions in the world which include the death penalty for insulting the Prophet Muhammad, the new laws extend protections to the pro...

The Asbury revival

6 Mar 2023
59:58

It all started on an ordinary Wednesday evening chapel service on 8 February, at a tiny Christian college in Kentucky called Asbury University. After the chapel service ended, a small number of students decided to carry on praying and worshipping, an...

Kate Forbes: Is there still space for evangelicals in politics?

27 Feb 2023
33:07

Kate Forbes was a relatively little known figure outside of Scotland until last week, when she announced she would run to succeed the resigning Nicola Sturgeon as head of the Scottish National Party, and therefore also become the First Minister of Sc...

Showdown on sexuality at the Synod

13 Feb 2023
51:27

There’s only really one church news story to talk about today – the Church of England voting through radical new plans to offer blessings to gay couples for the first time. We dug into the history of the LGBT debate in the Church and where these prop...

The rise of the social supermarket

6 Feb 2023
37:33

They’re known by lots of different names. A social supermarket. The community larder. Your local pantry. But the fundamental idea is the same, and it’s spreading fast. More and more churches and Christian charities are opening these projects to feed...

Abortion clinic buffer zones

30 Jan 2023
34:11

Starting in 2018, a number of English councils have begun using anti-social behaviour legislation to create buffer zones around abortion clinics. These zones ban anyone from protesting, singing, holding placards, expressing an opinion or even praying...

A unwanted compromise? Gay blessings in the Church of England

23 Jan 2023
24:51

Next month, the Church of England will finally begin to grasp the nettle of what to do about same-sex relationships. At a meeting of the church’s General Synod in London, vicars, bishops and ordinary churchgoers will debate new proposals from the chu...

Review of the year

19 Dec 2022
33:22

This week we’re looking back at the stories which have fired our imagination and caught our attention over the past 12 months. When it comes to the church world, there has been no shortage of headline-grabbing stories to keep us occupied, from pastor...

After Chris Kaba: The church, gang violence and the police

12 Dec 2022
29:41

In the first weeks of September, two people died. The first was Chris Kaba, a 24-year-old unarmed black man who was shot and killed by the police in South London. Just three days later, Queen Elizabeth II also died. As a result, Kaba’s death and the...

The church in Qatar

5 Dec 2022
32:48

This week we’re considering the fate of the church in a small Gulf state few had even heard of just a few years ago – Qatar. Before the tiny Arab nation controversially won the right to host the football World Cup, Qatar was fairly unheard-of in the...