Weeding out the astroturf

Are Christians allowed to speak into the assisted suicide debate ahead of a crunch vote in parliament, and a sketchy report on race backfires spectacularly

Hello! And a special welcome to all of those new subscribers who have joined us since last week. We will pick up some more of the ongoing threads from the Justin Welby/Makin report story later on, but we begin this week with the assisted suicide bill due to be debated by parliament next week. Lots of churchgoers and Christians are keenly interested in the debate, but are some questionable smear tactics by the pro-euthanasia lobby going to keep them pushed to the sidelines?

Then we rake over a row which gripped some of the Church of England for about five minutes earlier this month before a certain safeguarding crisis distracted us all. Has an official C of E report really just claimed only some church traditions are safe for ethnic minorities to worship in?

And lastly, we do get into the ongoing fallout of Welby’s fall from grace: we have a smorgasbord of interesting commentary and analysis to read, a harrowing TV interview everyone should watch, and the provocative case that the Maki…