Births, marriages and deaths: July 25, 2025
Bible verses are provided by the Bible Society.
MR J. S. BUDD AND MISS B. EMERY
Jon-Sebastian Budd, son of Dennis and Julie Budd and stepson of Andy Bourne, and Becky Emery, daughter of Matthew and Sarah Emery, are delighted to announce their engagement.
MR L. ROSSANO AND MISS I. DUNN
The engagement is announced between Leopoldo, elder son of Mr and Mrs Alessandro Rossano of Salerno, Italy, and India, elder daughter of Mr and Mrs Thomas Dunn of Holybrooke Hall, Co Wicklow, Ireland.
MR J. H. H. BERRY AND MISS E. M. R. PLOWDEN
The engagement is announced between Josh, elder son of Mr Paul Berry of Towcester, Northamptonshire and Mrs Sarah Berry of Reading, Berkshire, and Eliza, elder daughter of Mr and Mrs Charles Plowden of Humbie, East Lothian.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
4 hours ago
- Telegraph
Belief in God doubles among young people
A belief in God has doubled among young people in the past four years. More than one third of 18 to 24-year-olds now believe in a supernatural deity, up from just 16 per cent in 2021. The YouGov survey findings also reveal that atheism – the belief of no God – has fallen in the same age group from 49 per cent in August 2021 to 32 per cent. The poll, which did not break down the respondents by religion, appeared to support claims of increased belief in Britain amid a 'quiet revival' in churches and the growing Muslim population. 'Spiritual awakening' The Rt Rev Jill Duff, the Bishop of Lancaster, told The Telegraph that Britain was undergoing a 'spiritual awakening'. 'I'm not surprised by this,' she said. 'It is very much what we are seeing on the ground in our churches. 'There has been a trend in this direction – that the younger you are, the more spiritually open you are – for quite a number of years, and we are seeing a real openness to God and Christianity and especially to the supernatural in the younger age-group. 'I think there is a spiritual awakening. Covid led to a big increase in prayer – for example, there is a global week of '24/7 Prayer' coming up in September. 'The data is that as people pray, the nation spiritually awakens. That has been the case for generations.' The research also identified smaller increases in belief in other age groups during the same period. Among those aged 25 to 49, belief in God has increased from 21 to 25 per cent between 2021 and 2025, with atheism declining from 45 to 42 per cent. In the 50 to 64 age bracket, belief in God has remained consistent at 27 per cent, but atheism has declined from 41 to 36 per cent. But for those aged 65 and above, belief in God has decreased from 35 to 32 per cent and atheism has increased from 30 to 35 per cent. The figures indicate that the long-term decline of faith in Britain could be beginning to change. Church attendance has declined significantly since the middle of the 20th century, with those going to a Church of England service estimated to have fallen by 1.5 per cent every year since the 1950s. The 2021 census also revealed that Christians now account for less than half of the population of England and Wales for the first time in recorded history. 'Quiet revival' of Christians Other recent research also indicates that this decline in religious observance may be slowing amid mass immigration and a claimed 'quiet revival' of Christians. The Bible Society found earlier this year that 16 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds were monthly churchgoers, up from just four per cent in 2018. The research identified particular increases in attendance at Roman Catholic and Pentecostal churches. Bible sales in the UK have also almost doubled in the last five years. In 2019, sales totalled £2.69 million, but in 2024 they stood at £5.02 million, according to figures from Nielsen BookScan. Census data also shows Britain's Muslim population has increased in the past decade, rising from 2.7 million in 2011 to 3.9 million in 2021 – almost 50 per cent of whom were under 24. There was also a 5.7 per cent increase in the Jewish population between 2011 and 2021, up from 271,904 to 287,360.
Telegraph
07-08-2025
- Telegraph
‘God exists whether you have doubts or not': Five religious leaders on Kemi Badenoch's crisis of faith
At one stage in her life, Kemi Badenoch believed in God. 'I would have defined myself as a Christian apologist, always arguing with people about why there was a God,' she told the BBC on Thursday. But then news of Josef Fritzl, who'd locked his daughter in a cellar for 24 years, broke. 'That killed it', said Badenoch. It's a story familiar to religious leaders across the country, who are often asked how God can exist and still allow evil and awful personal tragedy to take place. Indeed, vicars, priests, rabbis and imams often experience their own trials, which can be all the more tortuous given their responsibility to project confidence and stability in the face of adversity. Here, five religious leaders describe how they address doubts that are raised with them about the existence of God, even in cases where they have privately wrestled with similar concerns. 'I don't have the answer' Yitzchak Schochet, 60, rabbi of Mill Hill Synagogue, north London At the beginning of April, there was a crazy car accident that happened in New York. A car jumped a kerb on Saturday morning when a mother and her daughters were walking home from synagogue, killing her and two of the children. I flew to the funeral in Israel, and I will never forget how, in the midst of it all, the grandfather who lost his daughter and two granddaughters yelled out to me, 'Rabbi. Why does God allow this to happen?' All I could do in that moment was give him a hug. I wasn't there to even attempt an answer, because I don't have the answer, and I have to be honest enough to know that. I know that there are things that are well beyond human comprehension. To believe in God means that you believe there are things that are beyond your own understanding. But the inevitable tension is always going to be there: knowing that I will not be able to provide the answer for the question that they're asking, but at the same time, wanting to encourage them to hold on to their faith, because that's the only thing that will walk them through whatever turmoil they're undergoing. 'I'm not some kind of saviour figure' Fr Ben Bell, 50, rector of St George the Martyr, south London My church is on Borough High Street. It's really busy, just down the road from London Bridge. We've got Guy's Hospital around the corner from us so it's not uncommon for people to come into the church on their way to an appointment. They come in with all sorts of crises: relationships, work-related, homelessness. Sometimes people come and ask: 'Am I cursed?' And I can give some concrete answers to that and say, 'No, I don't believe that is the case.' But very often, my role is to be an accommodating presence for people who are going through the s--- of life. We can all be tempted, from time to time, to think that we might be able to help. I'm not some kind of saviour figure, so that's not my business. I'm also a human who is a representative of the church. The place of the church is to hold people, or to provide a space for people who are wrestling with these questions: that is exactly what the church exists for, not for people who are full of certainty. As vicars, we're certainly not superheroes, we're certainly not fixers. We're certainly not spiritual paramedics. Our role is of accompaniment and prayer. Doubt and questioning how faith breathes are all part of this thing we call 'faith'. One of the great curses of modernity is that it's taught us that faith is an individual activity, and is all about certainty. I think that faith is communal and about mystery. It's not about certainty. And I think that we've been betrayed by modernist thinking in that respect. 'My son died on his honeymoon, but I don't believe it was the will of God' Rabbi Jonathan Romain, 70, Convener of Reform Judaism's Beit Din One of my sons drowned on his honeymoon two years ago: it was devastating for me, but it was not the will of God or part of some unfathomable divine plan, but sheer bad luck. Being religious means not being derailed by it and still living life to the full. People like to have a reason for why things happen. Why did my son drown? Why did my father die of cancer? Why did my wife get killed in a car accident? Sometimes there is no good explanation. People don't like question marks, they like answers. They much prefer to have an exclamation mark to a question mark. But Judaism is very much about saying life happens, bad things happen, but let's try and make a positive change. The trouble is that sometimes there's a difference between a person's emotional response and their intellectual response. Intellectually, a lot of people will say, 'You're right: my wife's cancer was just just bad luck', but emotionally they still feel there ought to be a reason. My message is: that's not always possible, but what is possible is change. So go out and do something positive for change in your wife's memory. 'My own faith is challenged' Glynn Harrison, 75, former diocesan lay minister, Christian speaker and retired psychiatrist I've wrestled with many of the same doubts and questions that Kemi talks about. You can't be a follower of Christ and not be sensitive to suffering. But I'm now much more comfortable with the fact that not knowing the answer to something doesn't mean an answer doesn't exist. And that's the way I cope with this question of suffering and the violent clash there is between the realities of the world and the conviction that God is good. I see the terrible toll of mental illness on some people and that really challenges my own faith, because you are watching a disintegration of the self at the most profound level of who we are. That's really hard, but even so, I come back to this idea that I think I can trust that God is good. Everything else about my faith tells me that God is good. We may not know the answer, but if he's good, there's reason for trusting him. I can think of a man who could not accept the tragic death of his wife and it finished his faith. At that point, you don't come in with arguments. You sit with them. It's a time for showing the love of God rather than talking about it. Being present, listening, supporting and grieving with the person. Later, after they've seen love in action, there's the opportunity to ask where this love comes from. Does it come from blind, material forces in a cruel universe? Or, does it come from the reality that we bear the image of God himself, and therefore from him who's the author of love? 'Doubt comes from my emotional reaction to something' Fergus Butler-Gallie, 30, vicar of Charlbury with Shorthampton, Oxfordshire I don't think anyone is immune to doubt, but I think there's an arrogance to think that my doubts matter. I think God exists, whether I doubt him or not, and doubt almost certainly comes from my emotional reaction to something rather than what's actually the case. That's my attitude to my own doubts. And then, invariably, something happens to reaffirm things and makes me realise how silly those doubts are. I don't really take them intellectually seriously, I view them as an emotional response, because God is there whether I like it or not. And one morning I might not like it, but that doesn't change it from being the case.
Times
07-08-2025
- Times
Births, marriages and deaths: August 7, 2025
THEREFORE the LORD waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. Isaiah 30.18 (NRSV) Bible verses are provided by the Bible Society. JONES on 4th August 2025 to Victoria (née Wilkinson) and Geoffrey, a daughter, Thea Maggie Primrose, sister to Autumn and Olive. MR C. L. HUNTINGFORD AND MISS N. B. DE WATTEVILLE The engagement is announced between Charlie, son of Mr and Mrs Richard Huntingford of Barnes, London, and Natalia, daughter of Mr James de Watteville of Winchester, Hampshire, and Mrs Rupert Allison of Maidford, Northamptonshire. MR A. T. O. CHAMBERLAIN AND MISS M. I. PLOWDEN The engagement is announced between Alexander, son of Mr and Mrs Christopher Chamberlain of White Colne, Essex, and Mary, daughter of Mr and Mrs Roger Plowden of Lydbury North, Shropshire.
