Nicaragua.

 Thu 26 Mar at 14:44

Hi, Last week I shared about the brutal pattern of violence facing religious leaders in Colombia. Today, I want to show you just how much your support can achieve when we refuse to look away and speak truth to power. For months, no one knew the fate of Carmen and Lesbia after they were detained in Nicaragua. These Roman Catholic lay leaders were targeted as part of a wider crackdown on fundamental freedoms – including freedom of religion or belief. There were no charges, no trial, no proof that these women were even alive. Someone needed to speak out and make sure they were not forgotten. The CSW community swung swiftly into action. Because of you – through your giving, campaigning and prayers – MPs, members of Congress, the EU and the UN Human Rights Council all heard about Carmen and Lesbia through our advocacy, and applied pressure in the right places. And it worked. A few months ago – 15 months after they had disappeared – we learned that the women are alive! There’s still more to do. Carmen and Lesbia are still under house arrest, and we want to see them fully free. Yet their story shows beyond doubt: your persistent, brave support makes a difference. If you can bring hope in Nicaragua, you can do it in Colombia and elsewhere too. Make my gift Your donation this Easter could: Provide trauma support to victim-survivors of attacks and abuses. Call for religious leaders in Colombia to have access to state protections. Raise awareness of religious freedom violations at the highest levels – and demand action. Will you give a gift today to help continue this vital work? A gift of £4 will help bring hope to people who face discrimination and violence for their faith around the world. Thank you for standing with those who need you this Easter. With every blessing, Scot Bower CEO P.S. People suffering for their beliefs need you right now. Please send a gift to bring hope and freedom. Thank you.

Husband and Wife.

 

Birdie.

 

Prayer Map Get a copy for your church Have you seen Release International’s colourful and informative Prayer Map? It highlights countries in our world where Christians face severe persecution and where Release International is active in enabling practical and spiritual support. The map features brief, paragraph-long summaries of individual countries, as well as helpful descriptions of different types of persecution. This eye-catching, A2 map is ideal for your church noticeboard or mission board. To order a copy, click below. GET A PRAYER MAP

Me Too!

 Why the House of Lords abortion vote leaves me angry, ashamed and apprehensive.

 (Photo: Getty/iStock)

Some evils shout. They march, they headline, they provoke outrage.

Others whisper. They slip through quietly, dressed as progress, framed as compassion, yet no less deadly.

It was this quieter evil that emerged on Wednesday 18th March in the House of Lords.

Under the language of reform, two decisions were advanced: the decriminalisation of DIY abortion up to birth; and the continuation of the status quo since Covid with the decision to not reinstate the requirement for in-person medical consultation before abortion pills are prescribed.

'Sad news' as House of Lords approves abortion up to birth Staff writer Christians have reacted with sadness after members of the House of Lords failed to back amendments that would ha...

Many opposed it, including the new Archbishop of Canterbury and several bishops. But the effort failed.

And something has shifted. 

Two Decisions. One Message.

Strip it down and this is what now stands:

- There is effectively no time limit on abortion.

- Abortion is treated as something that can be self-administered, without proper oversight.

Together, they declare: abortion is no big deal.

But it is a big deal. It is always a big deal. And it leaves me with three emotions: angry, ashamed and apprehensive.

Let me say first: there are real heartbreaking situations here. There are women under pressure, fear, coercion and deep distress. We must be compassionate. But compassion that demands silence in the face of wrong is not compassion; it is surrender.

Angry – Because Life Is Being Diminished

I am angry because life is being trivialised. We are told it is ‘just a foetus’. But that language collapses in the later stages of pregnancy. The unborn child can hear, recognise voices, respond, even learn.

This is human life. Yet the law now effectively says that ending that life, even at the very end, is not a crime.

Let us speak plainly:

Abortion doesn’t prevent a woman from becoming a mother. Abortion makes a woman the mother of a dead baby.

That is not rhetoric. That is reality.

And the Bible speaks with clarity:

‘You shall not murder.’
(Exodus 20:13 NIV)

‘Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?’
(Job 31:15 NIV)

Life is not ours to dispose of. It is God’s to give and God’s to take.

Ashamed – Because Responsibility Is Being Abandoned

I am ashamed. Ashamed that decisions of such gravity are made so quickly, so lightly.

Ashamed that moral seriousness is being replaced by cultural convenience.

And deeply ashamed that so many bishops did not even turn up.

When the church should have been present, it was absent.

When a voice was needed, there was silence.

When lives were at stake, seats were empty.

Absence, in moments like this, is not neutral. It is a statement.

The church has always declared that human beings are made in the image of God – sacred, not disposable. Yet now, under pressure, those convictions are quietly set aside. We were once a nation that aspired upward. Now we risk drifting downward.

Apprehensive – Because This Does Not Stop Here

I am apprehensive because this does not stop here.

If life before birth can be ended without consequence, what anchors life after birth?

If worth is decided by convenience, then no one is ultimately safe.

History warns us that when a society decides some lives matter less, it has already begun to lose its way.

Today the unborn. Tomorrow – who knows?

But my deepest apprehension is this ...

God sees. God knows. And God has spoken.

‘Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.’
(Galatians 6:7 NIV)

‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.’
(Isaiah 5:20 NIV)

We may rewrite laws, but we cannot rewrite truth. A nation that sanctions the destruction of its most vulnerable cannot indefinitely escape the consequences – spiritually, morally or socially.

This is not just about law, it is about who we are. The gospel tells us that God does not discard the weak – he enters their world. He comes not in power, but as a child. And from that moment comes a truth that shaped civilisation at its best: every life matters. Especially the smallest. Especially the voiceless.

And there is no one more voiceless than the unborn.

So I will stand for them. Because in the end, a nation is not measured by its progress, nor its prosperity, nor even its laws, but by how it treats those who cannot defend themselves. And when we silence the smallest voices, ignore the weakest lives, and justify what should never be justified, we may quiet our conscience, we may pass our laws, we may persuade ourselves, but we will not escape this truth: God will judge.

‘Lord, have mercy on us.’

CT.

MORE Tax on Wealth? - Didn't Labour Learn ANYTHING From All The Millionaires Who Quit These Shores Last Time?

 

tom clougherty

More tax on wealth is the last thing we need

Increasing the levy on investment returns would discourage enterprise and make us all poorer

Tom Clougherty

Thursday March 26 2026, 6.00am, The Times

‘Tax wealth. Get growth.” That’s the pithy conclusion of a piece by the Loughborough MP Jeevun Sandher for the news website LabourList. But while there’s truth to some of what Sandher writes, his overall argument does not stack up. 

Sandher does not call for the government to tax wealth directly, for example, with a net wealth tax. This idea, much loved on the radical left as a solution to all our ills, would be a disaster. 

As well as being impractical to levy, a net wealth tax would lead to punitive tax rates on investment returns, undermine start-up (and scaling) businesses and lead to capital flight. For a country like Britain it would amount to a kind of economic euthanasia. Instead, Sandher’s argument is that we should rely less on taxing work and more on taxing investment returns — dividends, capital gains and rental income. This wouldn’t only be fairer, we are told, but would boost the economy too.

There’s one immediate problem here. Compared with other countries, Britain taxes average earners fairly lightly. Meanwhile, our taxes on investment income do not look particularly generous by international standards. Among developed economies our capital gains tax regime is average at best. Our top rate of dividend tax — 39.35 per cent — is one of the highest around. And you will struggle to find a landlord who feels well treated by the tax system after the changes of recent years.

It is true that investment income is generally taxed at “preferential” rates, with lower headline tax rates than ordinary income and/or exclusion from national insurance contributions. Many have suggested having one set of tax rates for all kinds of income. It seems logical. But unless you make adjustments to the tax base — giving tax relief for savings, allowing for losses, accounting for inflation, offsetting the impact of corporation tax — taxing capital and ordinary income at the same rates creates a big, structural tax bias against investment. That will tend to reduce capital accumulation and make us poorer.

If you do make those adjustments, you may end up with a tax system that is more rational. But it will also be more complex — and won’t necessarily generate much more revenue. There’s a case for these sorts of reforms, but they won’t amount to a significant rebalancing of the tax system.

Similarly, the idea that higher tax rates on capital income increase investment — by encouraging businesses to reinvest profits rather than distribute them to shareholders — can be easily dismissed.

• We may never see taxes fall in our lifetimes

We shouldn’t try to lock profits up inside companies. We just want capital to flow where it will have the highest returns. Returning money to shareholders gives them more cash to invest elsewhere. This is a feature not a bug of shareholder capitalism.

None of this is to say that the right kind of tax reform wouldn’t boost growth. But we need a different approach to one that simply raises taxes on investment income then hopes for some counterintuitive magic to happen.

Corporation tax and business rates need to be reformed so that they don’t discourage investment. Stamp duty needs to be phased out, perhaps as properties change hands, in favour of a low but recurring property tax. And we desperately need to eliminate the cliff edges and tax traps in income tax and VAT that stop people from working and earning.

• There’s a simple solution to our savings tax problem

If there’s rebalancing to be done then, over time, it should be about getting more from taxing income when it is consumed and less from taxing it when it is earned and invested. We just need to work out how to do that in a way that spreads the burden fairly.

By contrast, taxing wealth would only deepen our economic malaise.
Tom Clougherty is an independent policy analyst. Times.

Burkina Faso.

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You make a difference! Caring for pastors in Burkina Faso ‘We are full of joy! And we continue to give thanks to the Lord and to you, who helped us!’ Pastor Emmanuel*, who serves in the West African country of Burkina Faso, has seen church members killed and has been forced to flee, in the face of attacks from Islamist militant groups. Serving the Lord has not been easy, particularly when persecution has meant moving from one place to another. In 2024 his village was attacked. ‘During the attack, four of our church members were killed,’ he said. ‘Many of us survived, because we managed to hide in the corn field. They targeted mostly men, but all of us were afraid.’ Emmanuel has benefited from a project supported by Release International, which seeks to help displaced pastors in Burkina Faso. He said, ‘Today my heart rejoices and I thank my Saviour for what he has done for me and my family. Also, I want to thank the supporters, who are in a different part of the world, for their act of mercy. We have already received funds for food and housing for two months, together with aid for our [ministry]. ‘You have remembered us; may God remember you in every moment of your life. May God bless you and all you do for him.’ * Name changed Burkina Faso To find out more about the country of Burkina Faso, including the challenges of being a Christian in that country, and the increase in violent attacks on Christians that have taken place there in recent years, click the button, below. LEARN MORE