"New Archbishop to be chosen via TV variety show, Bishops Got Talent"

IF the new Archbishop of Canterbury was to be chosen in a way that modern society could really relate to, this would certainly be it. Click here to read

Church in New York has to turn away Europeans... Why?

A church in New York is so popular with European tourists that they are having to be turned away at the door. Really! Find out more on this video from NBC's New York TV channel:

Click to watch this video now

When did Texas become part of Europe?

Okay, I AM cheating. This is a video about Texas, not Europe. But it is about a church for bikers in Texas. So it is still worth a look! Enjoy.

Is Europe "free"? In relation to religion at least...

Ever wondered if there was a relationship between religious freedoms and secularity in Europe? The Nova Research Centre has taken some of the recognised measures of "religious liberty" and charted their relationship with "secularity" and "social hostility" on nifty charts.

To find out more click here.

Just don't ask me what they all mean...!

Does God care about football?

Here is a new one for you! First, watch the video:

So what actually happened? This is what a BETTING website, of all places, made of it:
"Last night, we witnessed Torres continue his recent goalscoring form after a brace against Genk in the Champions League. It was arguably El Nino’s best performance in a Chelsea shirt & one which he could of finished with 4 or 5 goals.

"Was it because of weak opposition? Was it luck? Wrong on both accounts. It was because of his Chelsea team-mate David Luiz. Pre-match David Luiz appears to bless Torres & say a prayer for the Spaniard. Thirty minutes later, Torres has scored 2 goals & seem’s to be rediscovering the form that made him a world class player."

If only they had stopped there. But no, they had to finish with:

"Whatever crazy voodoo David Luiz casts has obviously worked and we could very well see this become a regular ritual before Chelsea games."

Free churches gain ground in Switzerland

A Swiss National Science Foundation project investigating religions, the state and society has discovered "Twice as many people attend services each week in free – mostly evangelical – churches as in the state-recognised Protestant Church."


"Twenty-nine per cent of all people who attend a religious service each week go to a free church while only 14 per cent visit the recognised Swiss Protestant Church."

They also state that 690,000 (about 1 in every 11) Swiss nationals attend a weekly service.

Free churches make up almost 25% of the nearly 6,000 religious communities in Switzerland.

See full story here

1/4 of churches in the Netherlands to close in the next 10 years

When I last visited Netherlands I heard about the problem of churches there closing. The picture above is from a church that had been converted into a book store. But this has now been confirmed by Dr Arjan Plaisier, secretary of the general synod of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands:

"According to expectation one quarter of the churches in the Netherlands will be closed within the next 10 years. We read about church closure in The Hague and other cities. But churches are closed in rural areas as well. Some buildings have not been there for a very long time. They were built somewhere in the 20th century. Other churches have been there for ages. Now they are being closed down. They are being destroyed or get another utilization. A part of history is finished. A place of worship, where baptism, marriage, mourning, prayer, singing and preaching took place, ceases to exist."

Full article here