A DEMOCRATIC MILESTONE: why South Africa’s 2026 elections matters for Africa
South Africa’s greatest victory in the 2026 municipal elections was not who won, it was the fact that the election itself worked. In a continent where free and fair elections remain the exception rather than the rule, South Africans witnessed a peaceful, competitive, democratic contest in which political power shifted without constitutional crisis, widespread unrest, or the breakdown of public institutions. Before debating the results, South Africans of all races, cultures and convictions should celebrate the democracy that made those results possible. CONGRATULATIONS SOUTH AFRICA
PERSECUTION IN ISRAEL: the truth unveiled
When Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declares that Israel is the safest place for Christians in the Middle East, many believers in the West accept that claim at face value. Yet a growing number of Israeli Christian leaders, clergy, and believers living in the land where Christianity was born tell a more complex story. One marked by increasing harassment, institutional pressures, legal challenges, and uncertainty about the future of their communities.
So, whose voice should the global Church listen to?
ISRAEL’S ELECTION: the collapse of six long-standing narratives
Israel’s recent election has been interpreted by critics as more than a routine democratic exercise. They argue that the results challenged a series of assumptions that have shaped international perceptions of Israel for decades. In their view, the election not only exposed the preferences of a governing coalition but also revealed deeper social, political, and ideological realities within Israeli society. The significance of the election, they contend, lies in what it uncovered about public opinion, democracy, civil liberties, religion, militarisation, and relations between Jewish and Palestinian populations.
HALLOWEEN, GAZA , and the evil we choose to ignore
The contrast between Halloween and Gaza touches a deeper question than just a simple date on the calendar. It confronts us as Christians with what captures our moral imagination, and our capicity to be distacted. While Christians debate symbols, costumes, darkness, and the philosophical idea of evil, entire populations are living under the crushing reality of evil expressed through war, violence, displacement, and death. This article does not aim to minimise the virtue of spiritual discernment, but seeks to challenge the disproportionate attention often given to symbolic threats while human suffering unfolds before our eyes.
SAND LILY: A song for Lebanon and Syria
During our recent journey through Lebanon and Syria, one of our younger team members, Schaine, gave voice to what many of us struggled to express. He wrote a poem born out of encounters, conversations, tears, and moments of unexpected joy. That poem has now been set to music.
First Impression of the Israeli Elections
Anxious Israelis watched as election results took shape on Wednesday, with the highest turnout in over a quarter-century. Exit polls suggested there was no clear winner and that weeks of negotiating could lie ahead. Dr Yohanna Katanacho provides a Christian perspective
ISRAEL ELECTIONS: is this the moment Gaza has been waiting for?
Israel is holding a national parliamentary election today, 27 October 2026, to elect the 120 members of the Knesset (parliament). It is the first general election since the October 7, 2023 attacks and the subsequent wars in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. The question most people outside of Israel is currently asking is: Could the result of the election bring an end to the Gaza conflict? Could this be the moment that Gazans have been praying for?
WCNSF: the stories of disenfranchised grief
WCNSF: Wounded Child, No Surviving Family. Five cold words reduced to five letters. Behind them lies a shattered life, an emptied home, and a child left to carry grief no child should ever bear. Few acronyms are more revealing, more condemning, or more heartbreaking.
FRANCE RIOTS: The day the lampstand fell
France is reeling from its worst rioting in modern history after nationwide protests over education and the cost of living spiralled into a wave of deadly, country-wide violence. The riots are not only political—they are spiritual tremors from a society that has attempted to keep the fruits of Christianity while cutting down the tree that produced them.
CANDLES IN THE STORM: Five celebrations from Syria
After days on the road through Lebanon and Syria, sitting with church leaders in lands marked by conflict yet alive with faith, we returned home with a single conviction: The Church in the Middle East is not defined by circumstances but by the Spirit who sustains it. In the shadow of war, we witnessed tensions that only the gospel can hold together. We witnessed a holy flame emerging from a broken frame — joy from grief, restriction to freedom, growth in decline, hope from uncertainty, destruction to beauty, and division transformed into harmony – like candles in the storm.