Truth and morality are central to the thought of the Roman Catholic philosopher John Cottingham, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Reading and an honorary fellow of St John’s College, Oxford. Andrew Brown interviewed Professor Cottingham for the Church Times this week, and this podcast brings an extended version of the interview. Professor Cottingham explains why he thinks that Descartes is a much more religious writer than many believe, and why he became dissatisfied with a secularised view of morals. Andrew Brown observes: “Philosophy, he feels — and thinks — should always maintain contact with the human problems that animate it in the first place.” Professor Cottingham has published more than 30 books, 16 as the sole author. They include How to Believe (Books, 1 April 2016), Philosophy of Religion: Towards a more humane approach (Books, 4 September 2015), and his most recent book, The Humane Perspective (Oxford University Press). Andrew Brown is the Press columnist for the Church Times. He writes about religion, technology, ethics, and literature. https://substack.com/@andrewbrown Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Sarah Tarlow is on the podcast this week to talk about her memoir The Archaeology of Loss, this month’s Church Times book club title. Susan Gray has written a reflection on the book in the 6 September edition of the Church Times: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/books-arts/book-club In her candid memoir, Sarah Tarlow excavates her memory to piece together the events and experiences leading up to her husband’s suicide, and traces the complicated grief which followed. Using her archaeological insights, the author makes parallels between what she has encountered through her professional work, tracing the rituals of death and commemoration, with the reality of her own personal situation. Nothing prepared her for the grim reality of caring for someone whose personality had been so affected by illness, and for her own struggles facing up to the actuality of loss. Sarah Tarlow is Professor of Historical Archaeology at the University of Leicester. She is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick, whose latest novel is Joy and Felicity (Sacristy Press, 2021). The Archaeology of Loss is published by Picador at £10.99 (Church Times Bookshop £9.89). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781529099553/the-archaeology-of-loss?vc=CT106 The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, we bring a fascinating conversation between the Bishop of Ramsbury, in Salisbury diocese, Dr Andrew Rumsey, and the podcaster and mindset coach David Watson, about church buildings and the contribution that they make to communities. Dr Rumsey is the co-lead bishop for church buildings; his recent folk album, Evensongs, was recorded in a 12-th century church in Wiltshire (Podcast, 20 October 2023). He is the author of the author of the highly praised books Parish: An Anglican theology of place (Books, 21 July 2017) and English Grounds: A pastoral journal (Books, 11 March 2022). This podcast first appeared on the David Watson Podcast, which explores the interesting people of this world, and what makes them tick. Find his podcast at https://www.youtube.com/@davidwatsonpodcast, at https://www.davidwatson.life/podcast-1, and on podcast platforms. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Caroline Chartres, who has written this month’s Book Club reflection on the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Maggie O’Farrell transports the reader to Renaissance Italy in her latest historical novel The Marriage Portrait. It is based on the true story of teenage bride Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici, the inspiration for Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess”, who died only a few years after marrying the esteemed Duke of Ferrara. In the book, O’Farrell reimagines the Duchess’s fraught final years, following her journey from the safety of her childhood home in Florence to the remote hunting lodge where her husband keeps her captive. Sections of the story are told from the first-person perspective, and Lucrezia’s fear that her husband is out to kill her is palpable. The Marriage Portrait is published by Tinder Press at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-1-4722-23880-3. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781472223883/marriage-portrait?vc=CT002 Caroline Chartres is a contributing editor to the Church Times. Sarah Meyrick is assistant editor of the Church Times and is to be its next editor. Her latest novel is Joy and Felicity (Sacristy Press, 2021). The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Can organs (and organists), choirs, instrumental music groups, and praise bands exist in harmony? This question was considered by an expert panel at the first Church Times Festival of Faith and Music in York (News, 3 May), held in partnership with the Royal School of Church Music. The panellists, who all have experience of traditional and contemporary styles, were: Peter Asprey, Director of Music at Holy Sepulchre London, the National Musicians’ Church in the heart of the City of London. The Revd Pete Gunstone, Minor Canon for Worship and Nurture at Bradford Cathedral. Tom Bell, a freelance organist who is also Director for the North of England, North Wales, and the Isle of Man at the Royal College of Organists. Find out more about forthcoming Church Times events at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events including the Church Times Festival of Preaching in September: https://festivalofpreaching.hymnsam.co.uk https://faithandmusic.hymnsam.co.uk Picture credit: Duncan Lomax Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the Revd Dr Isabelle Hamley is interviewed about Struggling with God: Mental health and Christian spirituality, which she co-wrote with C. H. Cook and John Swinton. The book is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. She is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Anne Holmes has written this month’s book club essay about the book. Read it at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/books-arts/book-club Struggling with God focuses on the mental-health challenges facing Christians, and looks at how these issues relate to spirituality, prayer, and church life. This is an accessible book by three academics. The authors address the stigma attached to mental health in church communities, and look at the problems arising from some church settings in which mental health is connected with a lack of faith. Each of the six chapters ends with a biblical reflection with questions for individual or group study. Struggling with God is published by SPCK at £14.99 (Church Times Bookshop £13.49); 978-0-281-08641-2. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780281086412/struggling-with-god?vc=CT509 Dr Hamley, who is the Principal of Ridley Hall, Cambridge, is speaking at the Church Times Festival of Preaching in September. https://festivalofpreaching.hymnsam.co.uk Sarah Meyrick is a novelist. Her latest novel is Joy and Felicity (Sacristy Press, 2021). The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, is interviewed by Francis Martin about her visit this month to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Since the “awful atrocities” committed by Hamas on 7 October and the subsequent “horrors of the war in Gaza”, she said, “there has been an absence of a focus on the West Bank. “One of the main points of my trip was to go to the West Bank, to listen to the voices of Palestinian Christians, to see how things are for them in the light of all that's been going on since 7 October, but being acutely aware that things have been going on for years and years.” During the visit, she met the family of Layan Nasir, the 23-year-old Anglican who has been detained by Israel since April. “We are praying and speaking out loudly in the hope that, when her case is heard, when the review happens at the beginning of August, that she will be released back to her family, who simply want her home.” Her itinerary also included a visit to the Military Court attached to Ofer Prison, near the West Bank city of Ramallah; a visit to the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem, where Christians are trying to protect their land from development; and prayer in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Bishop also had conversations at Hebrew Union College, in Jerusalem, with Rabbi Dr Michael Marmur, of Rabbis for Human Rights, and the Archbishop in Jerusalem, Dr Hosam Naoum. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This week’s episode is brought to you from Edinburgh, and features a conversation with the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Most Revd Mark Strange. It was recorded on Saturday, 15 June, at the conclusion of the Church’s General Synod meeting. The Primus spoke about the General Election campaign and Christians’ involvement in politics; the situation involving the Bishop of Aberdeen & Orkney, the Rt Revd Anne Dyer (News, 24 May); the Synod’s motion on the war in Gaza; mission in the 21st century; and his hopes for Scotland’s national football team at Euro 2024 (it was recorded the day after Scotland lost to Germany, but before the 1-1 draw with Switzerland, which kept Scotland’s hopes of advancing past the group stages alive). During the conversation, Bishop Strange was also asked about non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), and he said that he had no knowledge of their use in the Church. Subsequent to this, the SEC sent the Church Times a statement, which said: “Non-disclosure agreements have, on occasion, been entered into in the past in the Church. HR processes are handled at the appropriate level within the Church, and therefore the Primus would not normally be involved.” Read the report on the use of NDAs here and detailed coverage of the Synod meeting in this week’s Church Times (21 June), in print and online. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Stewart McCulloch joined Christians Against Poverty (CAP) at the start of the year as its new chief executive. He previously led the charity Stewardship. CAP’s latest report says that 46 per cent of its clients have considered taking their own life as a way out of their debt, and nine out of ten have reported having sleepless nights from financial anxiety (News, 24 May). On the podcast this week, Francis Martin interviews Mr McCulloch about the findings of the report, as well as how the cost-of-living crisis is affecting CAP’s clients. He also explains how CAP works with churches, why the charity is unapologetically Christian in its approach, offering clients prayer and invitations to church, and he calls for politicians to do more to tackle debt. “Our clients are our neighbours, they are friends of friends, they are the people amongst us, and so it’s a really transformative ministry in so many different ways,” he says. “It’s never just about the finances, because it’s about the social isolation, it’s about the anxiety, it’s about the spiritual poverty as well as the material poverty.” Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The best-selling novelist Karen Powell is the guest on this month’s Book Club Podcast, where Sarah Meyrick interviews her about Fifteen Wild Decembers, which is this month’s choice. Michael Wheeler has written an essay about the book in the 7 June edition of the Church Times. Fifteen Wild Decembers is a re-imagining of the life of Emily Brontë set against the wild moors of the author’s beloved Yorkshire — the same wild landscape that inspired her best-known novel Wuthering Heights. The book’s title is taken from Brontë’s poem “Remembrance”, words spoken at the graveside of her past love — “Cold in the earth — and fifteen wild Decembers”. She, too, like her lost love, ends up living a short life. In this first-person narrative, we hear Emily’s account of the domestic struggles that she has with her siblings from schooldays to adulthood, and the long journey to publication of not only her work, but that of her sisters, too. Fifteen Wild Decembers is published by Europa Editions at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-1-78770-545-6. Karen Powell grew up in Rochester, Kent, and now lives in North Yorkshire. Sarah Meyrick is a novelist. Her latest novel is Joy and Felicity (Sacristy Press, 2021). The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, Elizabeth Oldfield talks about her new book, Fully Alive: Tending to the soul in turbulent times. An extract from the book is published in the 24 May edition of the Church Times. Elizabeth is a journalist, public intellectual, and the host of the podcast The Sacred, which explores the deep values of a range of guests. Until recently, she was director of the think tank Theos. In Fully Alive, she explores what it means to live life to the full, drawing on theology, philosophy, sociology, economics, science, literature, and psychotherapy, and on her own life as a millennial feminist with a husband and two children, living with another family in an intentional community. Reviewing the book for the Church Times (Books, 17 May), Rachel Mann writes: “I can offer no higher praise than to say that this is a book for those who found oxygen and hope in Francis Spufford’s Unapologetic; that is, for those who can’t quite give up on the Song of Love despite all the evidence to the contrary.” Fully Alive is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £18.99 (Church Times Bookshop £15.19); 978-1-3998-1076-0. https://www.elizabetholdfield.com Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On this week’s podcast, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, is interviewed by Francis Martin about her recent trip to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. The aim of the trip was to show solidarity with the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and Christians in the region, and to understand more about the conflict and its impact on the diocese and local communities. “I think that we need to be much more vocal and confident in calling for a permanent ceasefire . . . [the war] needs to stop and it needs to stop now,” she says. “All the hostages need to be released. There needs to be unrestricted aid allowed into Gaza. . . in order to provide the possibility to begin talking. "This is not just for the Palestinians, it’s also for the Israelis. I don't see any advantage in this war for Israel. Violence will only beget violence, and until at some stage the violence stops, and people begin to talk, there is no possibility of a solution.” Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the Archbishop of York speaks about “Tuning Forks and Orchestras: Music and the mission of God.” The talk was given at the first Church Times Festival of Faith and Music in York Minster late last month (News, 3 May). It was held in partnership with the Royal School of Church Music. “The universe and all creation are held together in harmony by the single note of the will of God, played throughout the ages by the Holy Spirit, and from which everything else is tuned,” he said. “The music is complex and beautiful, but it is held together, and we are part of it, only finding our meaning and fulfillment in life when we tune in with God. We are, in thise sense, the orchestra of God, each with our own contribution to make, whether we play the trombone or the kazoo.” Photo: Duncan Lomax https://faithandmusic.hymnsam.co.uk https://www.rscm.org.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, Elizabeth Fremantle is interviewed about her historical novel Disobedient, which is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. She is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Natalie K. Watson has written this month’s book club essay about Disobedient. Disobedient is an enthralling historical novel that retells the turbulent life of the great Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi. As a young artist in Rome in the early 17th century, Artemisia outstrips her brothers and contemporary male artists in talent. Her initial struggle as a painter in a male-dominated society is nothing compared with the dramatic turn of events that occur when a handsome male tutor is employed by her father to teach her linear perspective. Her rage against the trauma that she experiences at the hands of her tutor and the way in which law and society then fail her is expressed through her art. The story centres on her motivation for creating the brutal painting Judith Slaying Holofernes — a critical point, at which her art takes a dark turn. Disobedient is published Penguin Books at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781405952811/disobedient?vc=CT203 Sarah Meyrick is a novelist. Her latest novel is Joy and Felicity (Sacristy Press, 2021). The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Photo: © J. P. Masclet Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, Fr Alex Frost — parish priest, best-selling author, and host of The God Cast — talks to Madeleine Davies about the Church of England’s problems connecting with people from working-class settings. Fr Alex has written a comment article in this week’s Church Times which argues that the C of E needs to remove barriers that make it harder for working-class people to respond to a call to ordination or lay leadership. “I heard examples of intelligent and highly capable individuals from urban working-class settings who had struggled to break through the pomp and procedures of the Church of England,” he writes. “And of individuals dismayed by the Church and its approach to training and developing leaders who happened to drink Vimto more than they did Vin Mariani. . . “I could relate to this. In my own journey to ordination, I had many advocates; but, for every advocate I had, there were dreadfully high hurdles put in front of me to demonstrate whether I might be worthy of fulfilling my authentic and genuine call to ordination.” The Revd Alex Frost is the Vicar of St Matthew the Apostle, Burnley, a member of the General Synod, and host of the podcast The God Cast: https://www.youtube.com/@thegodcast5878 His book, Our Daily Bread: From Argos to the altar — a priest’s story is published by Harper North (Books, 11 November 2022). Madeleine Davies is Senior Writer for the Church Times. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Emily Rhodes, who has written this month’s Book Club essay about the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. The Beginning of Spring is a historical novel set in Moscow a few years before the Russian Revolution as political tensions mount. The story starts with the sudden unexplained departure of Frank Reid’s wife, Nellie. She boards a train heading west, leaving her husband and children behind. Frank moved to Moscow with his family to run his father’s print business. Unlike his rambunctious Russian neighbours, Frank is a repressed but honourable English gentleman — a man of reason. Frank is left to look after three small children, and, for him, the ensuing days are full of misadventure, poignancy, and wonder. This intriguing story, which doesn’t follow conventional plot lines, is set against the background of the great thaw in Moscow which heralds the arrival of spring. The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald is published by HarperCollins at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-0-00-654370-1. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780006543701/beginning-of-spring?vc=CT405 Emily Rhodes is a writer and journalist, whose features and reviews have appeared in publications including the Financial Times, The Spectator, The Guardian, and the TLS. Sarah Meyrick is a novelist. Her latest novel is Joy and Felicity (Sacristy Press, 2021). The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Subscribe to Church Times before 15 April, and you will also a receive a FREE three-month subscription to the bestselling app, Reflections for Daily Prayer

On the podcast this week, the Rector of St Andrew’s, Ramallah, the Revd Fadi Diab, is interviewed by Francis Martin. Fr Diab was in the UK last week, hosted by Friends of the Holy Land, an ecumenical organisation whose volunteer committee he chairs (News, 22 March). During the visit, he met the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, Fr Diab says, “stands firm in solidarity with the Christian community in the Holy Land”. Fr Diab also preached in Southwark Cathedral and was in conversation with the Dean, the Very Revd Dr Mark Oakley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zZNPBFNlCI&ab_channel=SouthwarkCathedral Fr Diab speaks on the podcast about how life in the West Bank “has turned upside down” since 7 October, after Hamas attacks on southern Israel. The situation in the West Bank, however, could “not in any way be compared to the amount of pain in Gaza”, he says. https://www.friendsoftheholyland.org.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson talks about her new book, Reading Genesis, which has been described by Rowan Williams as “a work of exceptional wisdom and imagination”. Marilynne Robinson is in conversation with Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, a Visiting Scholar at Sarum College in Salisbury and Vice-Chair of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations. Reading Genesis is published by Virago and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £20: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780349018744/reading-genesis/%20?vc=CT322 Photo credit: Alamy For the whole of March, we are asking our readers to spread the news of the Church Times among their friends, acquaintances, and fellow churchgoers (and non-churchgoers). To celebrate (and help with) this, our paywall has been lifted for the whole of March, meaning you can enjoy all of our content — news, comment, features, faith, cartoons, and our historic archive — FOR FREE. There’s nothing complicated about it. We simply want to let as many people as possible know about our latest subscription offer: You can try your first 10 weeks of Church Times for only £10. All new Church Times subscriptions received in March will receive a FREE additional 3 month subscription to the bestselling app, Reflections for Daily Prayer. www.churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe For print readers, there should also be a sample copy of our new promotional leaflet in this week’s issue. Will you order more copies to distribute in your church? Simply email [email protected], giving a name, postal address, and the number of leaflets you’d like (multiples of ten); or phone 01603 785911 with these details.

On the podcast this week, Mark Oakley reflects on “Love (III)” by George Herbert. This episode was first posted last year as part of the Church Times Poetry Podcast for Lent series. “Over my years of reading Herbert, I have come to see him as the poet who most expresses our relationship with God as a friendship,” Mark says. “Friendship requires courage enough to stop skating so quickly over our own thin ice in case we disappear through the cracks. Instead, we face the fact that we need support and connection and that, also, we have much to give as well.” The material in this podcast is taken from Mark Oakley’s book The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press), winner of the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. The Very Revd Dr Mark Oakley is the Dean of Southwark. Artwork by Emily Noyce. For the whole of March, we are asking our readers to spread the news of the Church Times among their friends, acquaintances, and fellow churchgoers (and non-churchgoers). To celebrate (and help with) this, our paywall has been lifted for the whole of March, meaning you can enjoy all of our content — news, comment, features, faith, cartoons, and our historic archive — FOR FREE. There’s nothing complicated about it. We simply want to let as many people as possible know about our latest subscription offer: You can try your first 10 weeks of Church Times for only £10. All new Church Times subscriptions received in March will receive a FREE additional 3 month subscription to the bestselling app, Reflections for Daily Prayer. www.churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe For print readers, there should also be a sample copy of our new promotional leaflet in this week’s issue. Will you order more copies to distribute in your church? Simply email [email protected], giving a name, postal address, and the number of leaflets you’d like (multiples of ten); or phone 01603 785911 with these details.

Before My Actual Heart Breaks by Tish Delaney is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Tish Delaney talks to Sarah Meyrick, who has written this month’s Book Club essay about the book. Before My Actual Heart Breaks is published by Cornerstone at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-1-78609-098-0. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781786090980/before-my-actual-heart-breaks/?vc=CT601 About the book Against the backdrop of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Mary Rattigan’s dreams of emigrating to America are shattered when she finds herself pregnant at the age of 16. Mary’s strict Roman Catholic parents force her to marry a local farmer to minimise the shame that she has inflicted on the family. With flashbacks to her childhood, the story follows Mary’s marriage, one blighted by miscommunication, which is not helped by her lack of self-worth and past childhood trauma. Throughout the novel, the author’s prose captures the beauty of the sweeping countryside and farmland of Northern Ireland, and the use of the local vernacular adds authenticity to the book’s rural setting and to the raw emotions expressed. Tish Delaney was born in Northern Ireland and grew up during the Troubles. Leaving County Tyrone to study at Manchester University, she remained in England afterwards to work as a reporter and sub-editor on various magazines and national newspapers in London. Leaving The Financial Times in 2014, she moved to the Channel Islands to start a career in writing. Her debut novel, Before My Actual Heart Breaks, won the Authors’ Club’s Best First Novel Award. In June 2022, her second book, The Saint of Lost Things, was published. The author still lives on Alderney, which she often describes as mini-Donegal. Sarah Meyrick is a novelist. Her latest novel is Joy and Felicity (Sacristy Press, 2021). The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub

On this episode of the podcast, Debbie and Stephanie Hayton talk to Sarah Meyrick. Originally a heterosexual couple, they met as students, trained as teachers, got married, and had three children. When he was in his forties, David (as he was then called) told Stephanie that he had been struggling all his life with the longing to be a woman. After a great deal of preparation, he transitioned in 2012, and underwent full gender-reassignment surgery in 2016. Debbie has, however, been criticised by some in the LGBT+ community for her insistence that, despite her transition, she is not a woman. She rejects as “a fantasy” and “false narrative” the notion that anyone is born in the wrong body. She tells her story and explains her views in her book, Transexual Apostate: My journey back to reality, which is published by Forum at £16.99 (Church Times Bookshop £15.29); 978-1-80075-309-9. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781800753099/transsexual-apostate?vc=CT165 Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Francis Martin, a reporter for the Church Times, was travelling last week with the Archbishop of Canterbury in Ukraine. On the final day of the trip, Francis interviewed Archbishop Welby, asking about what he had hoped to achieve, the differences he had noticed from his previous visit in 2022, and about tensions between the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine. They also spoke about the challenges currently facing the Church of England, and how the Archbishop divides his time. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Francis Martin, a reporter for the Church Times, has been travelling this week with the Archbishop of Canterbury in Ukraine. During the trip, Francis interviewed Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zoria), a prominent figure Ukraine’s independent Orthodox Church (OCU), which is led by Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko) and is independent of the Moscow Patriarchate. He spoke about how the OCU is supporting the struggle against the Russian invasion, how it is helping Ukrainians who have left the country, tensions with the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and why he believes that God is protecting Ukraine. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Second Sleep by Robert Harris is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Susan Gray, who has written this month’s Book Club essay, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Robert Harris’s dystopian thriller is set in the 15th century, but, although medieval in tone and atmosphere, the date is misleading, as it is set 800 years in the future, because time has been restarted at the year 666. All traces of modern life, such as electricity and decimal currency, have disappeared. And the country is gripped by religious fundamentalism. The story begins with the young priest, Christopher Fairfax, arriving on horseback in a remote village in Exmoor to conduct the funeral of his predecessor, who met a mysterious death. Over the next six days, the young priest’s faith is tested as he uncovers the chilling truth. The Second Sleep is published by Cornerstone at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781787460966/second-sleep?vc=CT207 Susan Gray writes about the arts and entertainment for The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, and the Daily Mail. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub

For the podcast this week, Sarah Meyrick travelled to York to talk to the Canon Precenter of York Minster, the Revd Dr Victoria Johnson, and the director of the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM), Hugh Morris, about the importance of church music. The Church Times and the RSCM have together launched a new event, the Festival of Faith and Music, which takes place in York Minster from 26 to 28 April (News, 8 December). Full programme and ticketing information can be found at https://faithandmusic.hymnsam.co.uk. Through a programme of music and worship, talks and workshops, the festival is designed for clergy and church musicians, and seeks to celebrate church music in all its glory and to send delegates home encouraged, inspired, and equipped with new ideas for using music in worship. Canon Johnson will be speaking at the event about her book, On Voice: Speech, song, silence: human and divine, which will be published in March by Darton, Longman & Todd (Features, 5 January). On the podcast, she talks about some of the themes in the book, including why she is inspired by the singing of football crowds and how silence also figures in her thinking about sung worship. The keynote speaker at the Festival of Faith and Preaching will be the Archbishop of York, in a session called “Tuning forks and orchestras: Music and the mission of God”. Other speakers include Roxana Panufnik, composer of one of the works sung at the Coronation; and Andy Thomas, the author of Resounding Body: Building Christlike church communities through music. Two internationally renowned singers, James Gilchrist and Andrea Haines, both of whom started singing in parish church choirs, will talk about how it all began, and will perform some reflective music in the quire of York Minster. Find out more about the RSCM at www.rscm.org.uk. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, is seeking to draw attention to the impact that the privatisation of the care system is having on vulnerable children. In his diocese, he writes in the Church Times, the number of care homes has risen significantly in recent years, “not because there is a disproportionate increase in demand for children’s care places in Lancashire. It is because these are towns where housing is cheap and where labour costs are low.” He continues: “Almost unseen, the children’s care sector has been taken over by private suppliers. Now, of course, there is nothing wrong with profit in and of itself, and I have no doubt that many individual staff members are skilled and dedicated. But I, for one, feel deeply uncomfortable about the rapacious way many of these companies are operating. . . “Instead of putting the vulnerable child in the place of honour, in the UK that child has been monetised. It is hard to imagine a greater trauma than the collapse of one’s home life and being taken into care. Yet that misery is being exploited. Desperate children have become a tradable commodity.” On the podcast this week, Bishop North talks about his concerns, and considers how churches can help children who are in care. Read his article here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/12-january/comment/opinion/children-in-care-should-not-be-monetised Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Charlotte by David Foenkinos is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Emily Rhodes, who has written this month’s essay about the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Charlotte, translated into English by Sam Taylor, retells the tragic story of a Jewish artist, Charlotte Salomon, who died with her unborn baby in Auschwitz at the age of 26. Fleeing Berlin to escape Hitler’s reign of terror, the young artist found refuge in the south of France before her final transportation to the concentration camp. It was during this time that she created most of her work, a series of autobiographical paintings imbued with a sense of urgency and foreboding. The book is written in verse form. Each sentence is separated by a single line of spacing. Its lyrical style, while not sentimental in tone, adds poignancy and pace to the short story. David Foenkinos is an award-winning French novelist and screenwriter. He is the author of 18 novels, all of which have been translated into more than 40 languages. Charlotte won both the Prix Renaudot and the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens in 2014. Charlotte by David Foenkinos is published by Canongate at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-1-78211-796-4. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781782117964/charlotte?vc=CT506 Read Emily's essay here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/5-january/books-arts/book-club/book-club-charlotte-by-david-foenkinos Emily Rhodes is a writer and journalist, whose features and reviews have appeared in publications including the Financial Times, The Spectator, The Guardian, and the TLS. Find out about Emily’s Walking Book Club at https://emilyswalkingbookclub.substack.com The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclu

This week’s podcast brings a talk by Claire Gilbert given at the recent event “Fired in the heart: An online Advent retreat with Julian of Norwich”, hosted by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. Her talk includes a reading from her latest book, 'I Julian', a fictional autobiography of Julian of Norwich, which is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop. Claire Gilbert is the founding director of the Westminster Abbey Institute. She is a visiting fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, and has been a member of numerous public and advisory bodies. Find out about forthcoming Church Times events, including the Festival of Faith and Music, at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Akenfield by Ronald Blythe is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Malcolm Doney, who has written this month’s essay about the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. The rural classic Akenfield was published in 1969. During the mid-1960s, Blythe interviewed 50 people in the two East Suffolk villages close to where he lived, and asked them about everyday life in the countryside. He gave the pair of villages the fictional name Akenfield. Capturing authentic voices, ranging from blacksmith to doctor, Akenfield is an extraordinary oral history of a way of life which now, in many ways, has disappeared. Issues covered in this portrait of village life include farming, education, welfare, class, war, and religion. Ronald Blythe (1922-2023) was a writer, an essayist, and a Reader. In the Church Times obituary in January 2023 (Gazette, 20 January), he was described by Malcolm Doney as “a man of letters, a man of the Church, and a man of the countryside”. For the last 45 years of his life, he lived in Bottengoms Farm, on the Essex-Suffolk border — an Elizabethan yeoman’s house that he inherited from the artist John Nash. It was the beauty of the Stour Valley which inspired his writing, and it became the subject of his long-running weekly column in the Church Times, “Word from Wormingford”. Akenfield by Ronald Blythe is published by Penguin Books at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-0-14-118792-1. The Revd Malcolm Doney is a writer, broadcaster, and Anglican priest, who lives in Suffolk. His book, co-written with Martin Wroe, Hold On, Let Go: How to find your life, is published by Wild Goose Publications. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Picture credit: © CHURCH TIMES/NICK SPURLING Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This week, Sam Wells talks about his new book, How to Preach: Times, seasons, texts, and contexts. The interview with Christine Smith, publishing director of Canterbury Press, which published the book, was recorded at the How to Preach training day, organised by the Festival of Preaching, on 24 October at St Martin in the Fields, in London, where Dr Wells is the Vicar. In a review of the book for the Church Times, Andrew Nunn writes that Dr Wells “reflects on how he preaches, how he prepares, what he has learnt after over three decades of preaching in a variety of circumstances and situations. . . What this book encourages us to do . . . is to think again about what we are doing and why we do it." How to Preach is published by Canterbury Press and is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk; 978-1-78622-521-4. The next Festival of Preaching event will take place in Cambridge from 15 to 17 September. Details will be announced shortly. To be the first to receive details, sign up to our newsletter at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup or follow the handle the Festival of Preaching on Twitter https://twitter.com/FofPreaching https://festivalofpreaching.hymnsam.co.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The General Synod voted this week — by a narrow margin — to allow stand-alone services of blessing for same-sex couples to go ahead in trial form. Church Times reporter Francis Martin sat through the marathon debate at Church House, Westminster, and has reported on what went on and the reaction to it. On the podcast this week, he talks to the editor of the Church Times, Paul Handley, about the significance of the vote and what might happen next. Read reports about the Synod meeting in this week's Church Times, in print and online. There will be more indepth coverage in next week's issue (24 November). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Photo: Geoff Crawford/Church Times

On Friday 26 May this year, James Macintyre was advised to go to Accident & Emergency, after experiencing stomach pains. He was sent immediately to ICU, where he was diagnosed with acute or “severe” pancreatitis. He would spend the next four months in hospital, which included two months in the ICU and five weeks in a coma. Doctors thought that he might not survive. On the podcast this week, James talks about how the experience has shaped his faith, and given him renewed appreciation of family, friends, medical staff, and parish priests. As he wrote in the Church Times last month (Comment, 27 October): “There was no hiding from the notion that I’d been given a second chance, an opportunity, to repent of past sins, to keep away from bad habits, and to head in a different direction.” James Macintyre is a journalist who has worked for publications including The Independent, The New Statesman, and Christian Today. He is a co-author of Ed: The Milibands and the making of a Labour leader (Biteback Publishing, 2012). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Two Storm Wood by Philip Gray is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Richard Lamey, who has written this month’s essay about the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Two Storm Wood is set immediately after the First World War, when special battalions were given the grim task of retrieving the dead from the battlefields of northern France. A bold young woman, Amy Vanneck, sets out across the Channel to find out what became of her fiancé, who was listed as “missing, presumed dead”. Her search uncovers some unsettling truths, not only about her fiancé, a former teacher and choirmaster, but the other young soldiers traumatised by the hell of trench warfare. The novel picks up pace and tension as a gruesome discovery is made by Captain Mackenzie, and, together with Amy, a hunt begins to track down the psychopath responsible for this atrocious war crime. Canon Richard Lamey is the Rector of St Paul’s, Wokingham, and Area Dean of Sonning, in the diocese of Oxford. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub

Dr Andrew Rumsey is known to many of our readers as the Bishop of Ramsbury in Salisbury diocese, and the author of the highly praised books Parish: An Anglican theology of place (Books, 21 July 2017) and English Grounds: A pastoral journal (Books, 11 March 2022). He is also a musician and poet, who last month released an album, Evensongs, on Gare du Norde Records. The eight folk songs were recorded live on a single summer day in All Saints, Ham, a remote 12th century church in Wiltshire. Dr Rumsey says he set out to capture something of the magic of a country church in August — complete with bees, birdsong, and a whisper of wheezy organ. At the end of the interview, you can hear a track from Evensongs, “It’ll Come To Me.” Evensongs is available on Spotify, and digital, vinyl, and compact-disc formats can be bought at: andrewrumseymusic.bandcamp.com Picture credit: KT Bruce Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Welcome to a special edition of the Church Times podcast, recorded on Friday 6 October in Armenia. In this episode, Francis Martin, a reporter for the Church Times, interviews the Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of his trip to Rome and the South Caucasus. At the end of September, Archbishop Welby departed London for Rome. By the time he returned to the UK eight days later, he had visited three further countries: Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia. As part of the trip, Archbishop Welby met Pope Francis at the Vatican, as well as refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh now living in temporary accommodation provided by the Armenian church ; he spoke with political leaders and church leaders, young Georgians who have created a new Anglican congregation in Tbilisi; Muslim and Jewish leaders in Georgia and Azerbaijan; and many others; in what he dubbed a “pilgrimage of listening”. Photo credit: Neil Turner/Lambeth Palace Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Rachel Mann, who has written this month’s essay about the book, discusses it with Sarah Meyrick. Crossroads is a family saga set in suburban Chicago in the 1970s. The book, the first in a trilogy, focuses on the Hildebrandt family and the struggles they face trying to adapt to a fast-changing society. At the head of the family is Russ, a disillusioned pastor who feels under threat from his charismatic young associate. They disagree over the running of the youth group, “Crossroads”. Set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the burgeoning hippie movement, the narrative reveals the moral challenges that the younger members of the family face as they, in turn, reveal their troubles. Much of the story unfolds over the course of one day leading up to Christmas. This adds intensity to the story, reflecting Franzen’s skill in capturing the dramas of domestic life. Read Rachel's essay at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/books-arts/book-club Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen is published by HarperCollins at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-0-00-830893-3. The Ven. Dr Rachel Mann is the Archdeacon of Bolton and Salford, and a Visiting Fellow of Manchester Met University. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, Justin Brierley talks about his new book, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God: Why new atheism grew old and secular thinkers are considering Christianity again Justin presented the popular radio show and podcast Unbelievable? for more than a decade, which included debates with many leading figures in the New Atheism movement. But he believes that the New Atheism has fallen and is being replaced by a new conversation on whether God makes sense of science, history, culture, and the search for meaning. Justin has written an article on the themes of the book in the comment section of this week's Church Times (29 September edition). The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God is published by Tyndale House and is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop; 978-1-4964-6677-8. https://justinbrierley.com/the-surprising-rebirth-of-belief-in-god Photo credit: Tore Hjalmar Sævik Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Queen Elizabeth II died one year ago, aged 96, after reigning for 70 years. In this week’s Church Times, Richard Harries writes that “the extent and depth of the national grief was quite extraordinary”. The late Queen’s “steadfast faithfulness was rooted in her Christian faith”, he writes. On the podcast this week, there is an opportunity to listen to an interview, recorded last September, with the Rt Revd Graham James, a former Bishop of Norwich, about the late Queen’s Christian faith and her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Read Lord Harries's article at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/comment Photo: Alamy Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, Nathan Munday talks to Sarah Meyrick about his debut novel Whaling, and about his calling to both ministry and writing: not "a writer who preaches,” but “a minister who writes.” “It’s an experiment,” he says of the novel. “It’s me, finding my feet, finding my voice, studying the human condition. “Interestingly, I was at the time of writing it being called into the ministry, and I was sensing this shift in my own direction, in my own life. . . What I found is that writing fiction becomes a means of discussing the big things. I think, as ministers, we should be open to exploring new marketplaces. . . As ministers, we should not be afraid of writing creatively.” Whaling by Nathan Munday is published by Seren Books at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £9); 9-781781-727065. Picture credit: Kateryna Bila Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, Canon Yvonne Tulloch, the founder and CEO of the charity AtaLoss, talks about the need to support bereaved people, and calls for more funding for interventions that have been shown to be effective. In a Comment article for the Church Times this week (25 August issue), she writes: “To have a healthy future, loss needs to be processed. Unsupported, it can lead to many issues, such as behavioural and relationship problems, loss of function, employment issues and job loss, significant financial difficulties, and substance abuse, as well as physical and mental ill-health. Many counsellors say that unresolved grief is the root of their clients’ problems.” Yvonne is the founder and CEO of AtaLoss, a registered charity which helps bereaved people find support and well-being through a UK wide bereavement signposting website (https://www.ataloss.org), and by training and equipping churches to provide bereavement support for their communities through their Loss and HOPE project (https://www.lossandhope.org). The Bereavement Journey peer group support resource, which is being rolled out across the UK, is now being offered by churches in over 200 locations: https://www.thebereavementjourney.org Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Lee Stockdale is an American poet, Episcopalian, and army veteran. He won the prestigious UK National Poetry Competition Prize 2022 for his poem “My Dead Father’s General Store in the Middle of a Desert”. His father, Grant Stockdale, was a close friend of John F. Kennedy; Lee’s mother, Alice Boyd Magruder, was a poet. On the podcast this week, Lee Stockdale talks to Sarah Meyrick about his shock at winning the prize, which had more than 17,000 entries. Former winners include Sinéad Morrissey, Ruth Padel, and Carol Ann Duffy. “I really believe the Holy Spirit just thought, here’s a poem that may be not just literary, whatever that is, but could perhaps be helpful and healing. I think that’s what happened,” he says. It is “a gift”, he says, because the poem refers to his father’s death by suicide when Lee was 11. “I’m now 70, and I’ve worked through that. I’ve come out on the other side.” He hopes that his poem offers hope. Lee’s debut collection, Gorilla, was published last year. https://www.leestockdale.com Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, the Revd Dr Mark Oakley, who has written this month’s essay about the book, discusses it with Sarah Meyrick. The Lincoln Highway is a classic American road-trip novel set in the 1950s. On release from a juvenile work camp, 18-year-old Emmett Watson decides to travel to California with his younger brother Billy on the highway of the book’s title. Stowed away in the trunk of the car are two former inmates. The travellers, in their quest for a better life, all have different aims. To accommodate everyone’s dreams, the ensuing ten-day journey ends up taking a different course. The story is told from the perspective of each of the characters. It is these authentic voices that add dramatic tension to the story’s plot line, always keeping the final destination unclear. The Lincoln Highway is published by Cornerstone at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-1-529-15764-2. Dr Oakley is the Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge, and Canon Theologian of Wakefield Cathedral. It was announced recently that he is to be the next Dean of Southwark. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the Revd Robert Stanier, a parish priest and keen cricketer, talks about how English test cricket has been revolutionised by “Bazball”: an attacking, risk-taking style of play that doesn’t worry too much about losing. Are there lessons here for the Church of England? He writes in this week’s Comment section, “For the Church, one lesson of the Bazball revolution is that, as we think about fresh expressions, perhaps we should be thinking less about new formats, but more about fresh mind-sets. Counter-intuitive as it is, what we already have may contain possibilities we haven’t even begun to uncover.” Read the article here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/21-july/comment/opinion/opinion-england-s-cricketers-test-the-art-of-the-possible The Revd Robert Stanier is Vicar of St Andrew and St Mark, Surbiton, in the diocese of Southwark, and a former winner of the 2018 Wisden Writing Competition (Comment, 18 May 2018). He played in a recent clergy match featuring a cluster of cricketers from southern dioceses. Read his match report here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/21-july/news/uk/clergy-cricketers-play-on-undaunted-by-fewer-players-and-summer-rain Photo: Alamy Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Many of those who were ordained at Petertide will soon be embarking upon title curacies. What makes for a successful curacy? What are some of the problems that can arise between curate and training incumbent, and how can they be resolved? The Archdeacon of Auckland, the Ven. Rick Simpson, was the IME Officer, working with assistant curates and training incumbents, for Durham and Newcastle dioceses for 11 years. On the podcast this week, he draws on his extensive experience to explain how title curacies can work best. He has written about this for the Petertide edition of the Church Times. Read the article here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/7-july/features/features/title-curacy-where-are-the-rocks-and-how-do-you-steer-round-them The second edition of his booklet Supervising a Curate: A short guide to a complex task (P173), was published in March by Grove Books: https://grovebooks.co.uk/products/p-173-supervising-a-curate-a-short-guide-to-a-complex-task Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This week’s podcasts brings another highlight of the most recent Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which took place in Winchester in late February: Mark Oakley’s talk, “What if this were the world’s last night?” John Donne’s lessons for today’s Church. “[Donne’s] commitment to nearness means resisting soundbite theology, any quick clarity or easy answer,” Dr Oakley says. “It means resisting turning honest complexity into dishonest simplicity; it means bearing with each other, seeking to read the lines of yourself and others, so that — and this, I feel, might be Donne’s great contribution to us as a Church — we are not charged to be relevant, but resonant. Our faith is not an opinion column, it is not a hobby, it is not the latest fad: it is seeking to address the perenial depth of what we experience as being human. Resonance happens in a deeper place than relevance.” The Revd Dr Mark Oakley is Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge, and Canon Theologian of Wakefield Cathedral. His books inclued The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press), which won the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize. He recently received the Lanfranc Award for Education and Scholarship at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Awards 2023. https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Sir Terry Waite was held hostage in Lebanon in the 1980s and ‘90s, while a special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. He was in captivity for the best part of five years, most of this time in solitary confinement. Last week, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the King’s Birthday Honours list. When his book, Solitude: Memories, people, places (SPCK) was published in 2017 (Books, 24 November 2017), he was interviewed by Sarah Meyrick. The book is available in paperback from the Church House Bookshop. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church met in Edinburgh last week. Francis Martin has been there to report for the Church Times. He sat down with the Primus, the Most Revd Mark Strange, Bishop of Moray, Ross & Caithness, to talk about how the meeting has gone. Bishop Strange also spoke about the part he played in the Coronation; why he enjoyed last year’s Lambeth Conference; and the suspension of the Bishop of Aberdeen & Orkney, the Rt Revd Anne Dyer. Detailed reports of the Synod will be published in the 16 June issue of the Church Times, and will be available online. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the writer and journalist Emily Rhodes talks to Ed Thornton about Emily’s Walking Book Club, which she wrote about in this week’s Church Times (Features, 9 June). The book club, which meets monthly on Hampstead Heath and also has a monthly Zoom and a Live Discussion Thread, recently discussed Ronald Blythe’s rural classic, Akenfield. On the podcast, recorded while walking round Clissold Park, in north London, Emily talks about how members of the book club responded to Akenfield; how a walking book club can foster community and meaning; and whether there are similarities to pilgrimage. Find out more about Emily’s Walking Bookclub at https://emilyswalkingbookclub.substack.com Emily Rhodes is a writer and journalist, whose features and reviews have appeared in publications including the Financial Times, The Spectator, The Guardian, and the TLS. https://emilyrhodeswriter.com Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Canon Richard Lamey, who has written this month’s essay about the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Read the essay here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/2-june/books-arts/book-club/book-club-my-father-s-house-by-joseph-o-connor My Father’s House is a historical thriller set in Rome in 1943, when the city was under Nazi occupation. The story follows the journey of a group of Jews, diplomats, and escaped Allied prisoners who try to flee Italy. They take refuge in the Vatican City, and their escape is facilitated under the guise of a choir, by a courageous Irish priest. Tension builds as the Gestapo begin to suspect the priest’s secret operation. The novel is based on a true story, and is a retelling of the workings of the Rome Escape Line, covering the heroic work of Mgr Hugh O’Flaherty. My Father’s House is published by Harvill Secker at £20 (Church Times Bookshop £18); 978-1-78730-082-8. Canon Richard Lamey is the Rector of St Paul’s, Wokingham, and Area Dean of Sonning, in the diocese of Oxford. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This week’s podcasts brings another highlight of the most recent Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which took place in Winchester in late February: Gaia Vince in conversation with the Rt Revd John Pritchard about her book Nomad Century: How to survive the climate upheaval (Features, 2 December, Books, 23 December). In a review of the book for the Church Times, the Rt Revd David Chillingworth described it as “a remarkable and important book. It takes a hard look at what our world may become as the effects of global warming gather pace. . . “Vince suggests that the response of humanity to these challenges [of climate change] must be the one that it has always used: migration. Migration is ‘not the problem. . . migration is the oldest survival trick.’ Hence the title, Nomad Century.” Nomad Century is published by Penguin and is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop; 978-0-24152-231-8. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780241522318/nomad-century Gaia Vince is an award-winning science journalist, writer, and broadcaster, and an honorary senior research fellow at UCL. The Rt Revd John Pritchard is a former Bishop of Oxford. https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Photo: KT Bruce Music for the podcast is by Twisterium Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

So far this year, there have been 18 school shootings in the United States, and a total of more than 200 mass shootings in the country. On the podcast this week, the Bishop of Colorado, the Rt Revd Kym Lucas, is interviewed about this epidemic of gun violence, and talks about her own experience of a shooting in her son’s school. Interview by Francis Martin. “When I tell people what I do, I say: ‘I’m a follower of Jesus. And I mean that Jesus who said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The one who said, “Those who live by the sword (or the gun!) will die by it,’”’ she says. “It is very odd notion that somehow being a follower of Jesus makes you an advocate of violence, or even a proponent of violence, in terms of gun ownership. I find that very strange.” Music for the podcast is by Twisterium Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

From Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday, Malcolm Guite shares a sequence of sonnets for Holy Week. They are taken from his collection, Sounding the Seasons (Canterbury Press). Today, he reflects on and reads his sonnet, “Maundy Thursday.” The Revd Dr Malcolm Guite is a Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and writes the weekly Poet’s Corner column for the Church Times. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

From Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday, Malcolm Guite shares a sequence of sonnets for Holy Week. They are taken from his collection, Sounding the Seasons (Canterbury Press). Today, he reflects on and reads his sonnet, “The anointing at Bethany.” The Revd Dr Malcolm Guite is a Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and writes the weekly Poet’s Corner column for the Church Times. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

From Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday, Malcolm Guite shares a sequence of sonnets for Holy Week. They are taken from his collection, Sounding the Seasons (Canterbury Press). Today, he reflects on and reads his sonnet, “Cleansing the Temple.” The Revd Dr Malcolm Guite is a Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and writes the weekly Poet’s Corner column for the Church Times. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This month’s Church Times Book Club choice is Of Stone and Sky by Merryn Glover. On this Book Club Podcast, Ian Bradley, who has written an essay about the book in this week's Church Times, interviews the author. Of Stone and Sky is published by Birlinn and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.99. Of Stone and Sky is a novel set in the hills and straths of the Scottish Highlands. At the heart of this multi-generational saga is the mystery of the disappearance of the Highland shepherd Colvin Munro. One of the main narrators of this modern-day redemptive tale is Mo, the missing shepherd’s foster-sister. Mo is a Church of Scotland minister, and her voice becomes the book’s moral compass. In the book, the author covers a range of themes relevant to the use of the Highlands, including land ownership, ecology, and the challenges facing sheep-farming. Merryn Glover is a novelist and radio dramatist. She was born in Kathmandu and brought up in Nepal, India, and Pakistan, where her Anglican Australian parents worked as Wycliffe Bible Translators. The author now lives in the Upper Spey Valley, in the Highlands, which provides the setting for Of Stone and Sky, her second novel. The Revd Professor Ian Bradley is Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History at the University of St Andrews. His latest book, God Save the King: The sacred nature of the monarchy, is published by Darton, Longman & Todd at £8.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.09) (Comment, 28 April). The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup. Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Photo: © Stewart Grant Music for the podcast is by Twisterium Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

From Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday, Malcolm Guite shares a sequence of sonnets for Holy Week. They are taken from his collection, Sounding the Seasons (Canterbury Press). Today, he reflects on and reads his sonnet, “Jesus weeps.” The Revd Dr Malcolm Guite is a Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and writes the weekly Poet’s Corner column for the Church Times. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

From Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday, Malcolm Guite shares a sequence of sonnets for Holy Week. They are taken from his collection, Sounding the Seasons (Canterbury Press). “In composing these sonnets, I had in mind that mysterious and beautiful phrase in the Psalms about the man in whose heart are the highways to Zion (Psalm 84.5),” he says. “I wanted to develop the hint offered in that phrase that there is an inner as well as an outer Jerusalem, and that therefore the events of Holy Week are both about Jesus’s outward visible and historical entry into Jerusalem. and what he did there, and also about his entry into the inner Jerusalem, 'the seething holy city' of our own hearts.” The Revd Dr Malcolm Guite is a Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and writes the weekly Poet’s Corner column for the Church Times. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, there’s a chance to listen again (or perhaps for the first time) to a conversation between Professor Robin Dunbar and Dr Mark Vernon. They discuss Professor Dunbar’s book How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures, which is now available in paperback from the Church House Bookshop. In a review of the book for the Church Times (Books, 29 April 2022), Dr Vernon wrote: “The longstanding tendency has been to treat the almost universal presence of religious beliefs and rituals in human populations as a by-product of human needs, from lessening the terrors of death to bolstering the moral imperatives that support sociality. But, instead of treating religions as noble lies or discardable delusions, Dunbar presents the evidence for religious practices’ being a necessary part of human evolution. This necessity is why he thinks that religion will endure and resist secularising pressures.” Dr Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Dr Mark Vernon is a psychotherapist and writer. His latest book is Spiritual Intelligence in Seven Steps (Iff Books, 2022). His other recent books include Dante’s “Divine Comedy”: A guide for the spiritual journey (Angelico Press, 2021) (Podcast, 10 September 2021) and A Secret History of Christianity (John Hunt Publishing, 2019). Photo: Alamy Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, Richard Harries is interviewed about his memoir, The Shaping of a Soul: A life taken by surprise. In a review of the book in the Church Times (Books, 6 April), Stephen Platten wrote: “The pages breathe throughout a certain confidence, but failures are not swept away, and the writing is permeated by a consistent generosity.” Lord Harries was Bishop of Oxford from 1987 to 2006, after which he became a crossbench life peer in the House of Lords. He is the author of more than 40 books focused on art, literature, politics, social issues, morality, and, theology. He is also a frequent contributor to the Church Times. The Shaping of a Soul: A life taken by surprise is published by John Hunt at £18.99 (Church Times Bookshop £16.99); 978-1-80341-162-0 Read an extract at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/31-march/features/features/richard-harries-new-memoir-theology-and-sherry-in-the-officers-mess Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This week’s podcasts brings a highlight of the most recent Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which took place in Winchester in late February: Colin Heber-Percy in conversation with Andrew Rumsey on the theme, “Throwing away the map, and setting out anyway.” Dr Heber-Percy reads extracts from Tales of a Country Parish: From the Vicar of Savernake Forest, his account of life and parish ministry during lockdown, which was published last year by Short Books (Books, 1 April 2022, Faith Features, 18 March 2022), and discusses some of its themes with Dr Rumsey. Dr Heber-Percy also reads pieces of writing not included in Tales of a Country Parish. The Revd Dr Colin Heber-Percy is a Team Vicar in the Savernake Team Ministry, in Salisbury diocese. He is also a writer and screenwriter, and has written numerous articles on faith and film, the philosophy and theology of cinema. His book, Perfect in Weakness, on the work of Andrei Tarkovsky, is widely acclaimed. The Revd Dr Andrew Rumsey is the Bishop of Ramsbury in Salisbury diocese, and the co-lead bishop for church buildings and cathedrals. His most recent book is English Grounds: A pastoral journal (SCM Press) (Podcast, 2 December 2021, Books, 11 March 2022). https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Photo: KT Bruce Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On this month's episode of the Book Club Podcast, Dr Natalie K. Watson, who has written about the book in this week’s Church Times, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. The Island of Missing Trees is set between Cyprus in 1974, at the start of the country’s conflict with Turkey, and London, decades later. Two teenagers, Kostas and Defne, from different sides of the warring parties, meet in secret at a taverna. In the middle of the taverna is an impressive fig tree. Kostas, a keen botanist, takes a cutting from his beloved Ficus carica when forced to flee to England. It is from the perspective of the fig tree that much of the story is told — a tale of love, loss, and generational trauma. Born in France (1971) to Turkish parents, Elif Shafak is an academic, author, and advocate of women’s and minority rights. As an author of fiction, she has written 11 published novels in both Turkish and English. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019. She now lives in London. The Island of Missing Trees is published by Penguin at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-0-241-98872-5. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup. Discuss this month’s book at https://www.facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Dr Natalie K. Watson is a theologian, writer, and editor, living in Peterborough. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, Olivia Jackson talks about her book (Un)Certain: A collective memoir of deconstructing faith. After the interview, she reads a short excerpt from the book. Faith deconstruction — the intentional examination of one's religious faith and beliefs, leading to a profound change in, or even loss of, that faith — has received increasing attention in the past few years, with the emergence of podcasts and online fora dedicated to discussing it. So, who are the people who deconstruct their faith, what causes them to do so, and where does the journey take them? (Un)Certain is a collective memoir built on the stories and reflections of more than 150 interviewees and nearly 400 survey respondents from all over the world, including the author's own story. Read an extract from the book here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/10-march/features/features/faith-that-expects-you-to-fall (Un)Certain is published by SCM Press and is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334063636/uncertain Olivia Jackson spent nearly 20 years working for mission agencies in the UK and overseas, and then as a human rights consultant with a focus on violence against women and girls, all of which fed into her own faith deconstruction. She lives on the side of a windswept hill with two dogs. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie talks about his new book, Touching Cloth: Confessions and communions of a young priest. He is interviewed by Ed Thornton. In a review of the book for the Church Times, the Ven. Dr Lyle Dennen says the book “tells the story of his [Fergus’s] first year as a priest at a city-centre church in Liverpool. The book is in the style of a diary following the liturgical year. It is filled with many funny stories of clerical mishaps, and profound spiritual reflections.” Read an extract from the book in this week's Church Times. Touching Cloth is published by Bantam Press (an imprint of Transworld) at £16.99 (Church Times Bookshop £15.29). The Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie is a writer and priest who has ministered in parishes in Liverpool and central London. His previous books are A Field Guide to the English Clergy (Books, 30 November 2018, Podcast, 7 December 2018) and Priests de la Résistance! Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

In the fifth episode of the Church Times Poetry Podcast for Lent, Mark Oakley reflects on the poem “Prayer” by Zaffar Kunial, published in his collection Us (Faber & Faber, 2018). “The beauty of life is heard in this poem, but are the prayers that emerge out of its fragility and pain heard by anyone, by God?” Canon Oakley says. “For all our stores of knowledge and ingenuity, there are questions whose answers remain unknown in life. Our approach to them can distil us or destroy us. The poet John Keats referred to “negative capability” . . . that is, the ability we can have to hold doubts and mysteries without resolving them, resisting the impatience for quick clarity, in order to deepen and learn from them. “This is a defining characteristic of Kunial’s work, and certainly one of its attractions. The natural reticence mixed with the quiet strength of not grasping to a single view is, for me, very aligned to the sensibilities of a religious faith.” This is the last of Canon Oakley’s Lent podcasts. The series will continue in Holy Week when Malcolm Guite will reflect on a series of sonnets. Canon Mark Oakley is the Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge. His book The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press) won the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. Artwork by Emily Noyce. Producer: Ed Thornton Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

In the fourth episode of the Church Times Poetry Podcast for Lent, Mark Oakley reflects on “Winter Swans” by Owen Sheers, published in his collection Skirrid Hill (Seren Books, 2005). “Those with a religious belief are as human as everyone else,” Mark says. “They live with the ebb and flow of the heart, as well as the pain of what the past is up to in the present. "Deep within the heart of Christian faith, though, is the belief that human beings were made for relationship, and that, although many things work against this — past traumas, present stresses, future doubts — it is an elemental part of the human adventure to seek to place our relationships in good order, integrated with honesty, freedom, and mutual concern.” Canon Mark Oakley is the Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge. His book The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press) won the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. Artwork by Emily Noyce Producer: Ed Thornton Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

In the third episode of the Church Times Poetry Podcast for Lent, Mark Oakley reflects on “Love (III)” by George Herbert. “Over my years of reading Herbert, I have come to see him as the poet who most expresses our relationship with God as a friendship,” Mark says. “I’m not talking about friendship in terms of the 600 ‘Friends’ we have on Facebook, but rather the one or two people who have changed our life for good and maybe at some cost to us both. “Thinking about these friends can dare us to reflect, as I think did Herbert, that our life with God is a friendship that asks of us a mutual freedom. Friendship deepens as honesty deepens. We cannot put the other on a pedestal. We must try and prize off the mask that has begun to eat into our face. We need to be brave in hearing what we don’t like or saying what we have never dared. “Friendship requires courage enough to stop skating so quickly over our own thin ice in case we disappear through the cracks. Instead, we face the fact that we need support and connection and that, also, we have much to give as well.” The material in this podcast is taken from Mark Oakley’s book The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press), winner of the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. Canon Mark Oakley is the Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge. Artwork by Emily Noyce Producer: Ed Thornton Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

In the second episode of the Church Times Poetry Podcast for Lent, Mark Oakley reflects on “Don’t give me the whole truth” by Olav H. Hauge (1908–1994). The poem is published in Hauge’s 1996 collection of the same name, published by Anvil Press Poetry, an imprint of Carcanet Press. “Here in this poem, Hauge prays that he will only be given enough in life to keep him going,” Mark says. “He doesn’t want all that there is. Like birds who only carry off a few drops of water from the stream, or wind that only takes a grain of salt from the ocean, he doesn’t want to possess everything or understand it completely. “Instead, he asks for glints, epiphanies, droplet recognitions that feed us enough to keep us exploring but not enough to make us feel we have arrived. It is the prayer of a pilgrim.” The material in this podcast is taken from Mark Oakley’s book The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press), winner of the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. Canon Mark Oakley is the Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge. Artwork: Emily Noyce Producer: Ed Thornton Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On this episode of the Book Club Podcast, the Revd Alexander Faludy, who has written about the book in this week’s Church Times, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Published in 1940, Ernest Hemingway’s war novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is set in 1937, near Segovia, during the Spanish Civil War. The lead character, Robert Jordan, is a young American teacher who volunteers to help a group of guerrilla fighters blow up a bridge to stop the advance of Francisco Franco’s fascist forces. The drama evolves over three days at the cave hideout of the guerrilla fighters in the pine forests of the Spanish Sierra. During that time, Robert Jordan falls in love with a Spanish girl, Maria. As tension mounts and death seems certain, the book’s title, derived from one of the metaphysical poet John Donne’s meditations takes resonance: “Ask not for whom the bell tolls It tolls for thee.” Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an author and journalist, and is celebrated as one of the leading American 20th-century novelists. For Whom the Bell Tolls is published by Cornerstone at £8.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.09); 978-0-09-990860-9. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

We are pleased to present a new poetry podcast for Lent, in association with Canterbury Press. This week, Canon Mark Oakley reflects on “Paternoster” by Jen Hadfield. "Paternoster" is published in her collection Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe Books, 2008), which won the T.S. Eliot Prize. We are grateful to Bloodaxe Books for giving permission to play a recording of Jen Hadfield reading the poem. bloodaxebooks.com. “‘Paternoster’ is, to my mind, one of her most beautiful poems,” Mark says. “It is a prayer of a draughthorse in which she reworks the texture and rhythm of the Lord’s Prayer through the horse’s heart. . . If you want a glimpse of the beauty of a prayerful, intimate litany from a tired but hopeful heart then I recommend you listen to it as well as read it. Hadfield’s poems are mesmeric and are meant, as are all poems, to be heard.” The material in this podcast is taken from Mark Oakley’s book The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press), winner of the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. Canon Mark Oakley is the Dean of St John's College, Cambridge. Artwork: Emily Noyce Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The General Synod voted this week to welcome the Bishops’ proposals to provide prayers to bless same-sex unions in church — but with a last-minute clarification that their use would not contradict the Church’s current teaching on marriage. On the podcast this week, Francis Martin speaks to different Synod members to hear their reactions to the vote — from both those who welcome it and those who do not. Picture credit: Max Colson/Church Times Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Music for the podcast is by Twisterium.

The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Rachel Mann, who has written this month’s book club essay about the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. The Inseparables is published by Vintage at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-1-78487-718-7. The Inseparables is an autobiographical novel that was never published in Simone de Beauvoir’s lifetime, as it was considered too intimate for publication at the time of its writing in the 1950s. It covers the real-life story of de Beauvoir’s adolescent relationship with Zaza, which had a profound effect on the philosopher’s thinking and writing. Zaza died at the age of 21. In the book, Zaza is represented by the character Andrée Gallard, and the author appears as the narrator, Sylvie Lepag. Set in France just after the First World War, the story follows their ten-year relationship from the age of nine, describing their in-depth discussions about equality, justice, and religion. Their teachers deemed them “inseparable”. The late Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) is heralded as being one of the most important philosophers and feminists of the 20th century. She worked alongside the French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, and became one of the leaders of the existentialist movement. Her writing included work on philosophy, feminism, fiction, autobiography, and politics. Her books include the novel The Mandarins (1957), which won the Prix Goncourt. The author is best known for her influential philosophical work The Second Sex (1949) — a work of feminist philosophy which was put on Vatican’s Index of Prohibited Books. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Tickets are now on sale for the next Festival, which takes place in Winchester from 24 to 26 February. For more information and to buy tickets, visit https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk. Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Music for the podcast is by Twisterium

On the podcast this week, the writer and activist Symon Hill talks about protest and Christian faith. Symon was arrested on 11 September during the Proclamation of the King’s Accession in Oxford, after shouting “Who elected him?”. The charges against him were dropped earlier this month (News, 13 January). He talks on the podcast about the importance of the right to protest peacefully, as well as about why he believes that forms of non-violent direct action are often necessary in the pursuit of justice, such as when campaigning against the arms trade. He also talks about his new book, The Peace Protestors: A history of modern-day war resistance, which the Revd Fraser Dyer described as a “richly detailed and thoroughly readable history of the past forty years of peace protest in the UK” (Books, 23 December). An extract from the book is published in this week’s Church Times, as well as a feature by Symon on activism and Christian faith. Read here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/27-january/features/features/symon-hill-my-arrest-for-querying-the-king. The Peace Protestors is published by Pen and Sword History at £25 (CT Bookshop £22.50). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk As well as being a writer and activist, Symon works part-time for the Peace Pledge Union and teaches History and Religious Studies for the Workers’ Educational Association. https://symonhill.org Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the writer and comedian Cariad Lloyd talks about her new book, You Are Not Alone: A new way to grieve. The book is a distilliation of what she has learned through her award-winning podcast, Griefcast. “I think we don’t talk about death enough, basically,” she says. “Even if we’re better than we were, say, 50 years ago, we don’t give space to grief. We don’t allow people to be sad. We kind of expect people after a year, maybe two years, to stop going on about it, even if we never say that out loud.” You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury Tonic and is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk https://cariadlloyd.com Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Picture credit: BBC/Fremantle Media/Talkback

The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land, short stories by Omer Friedlander, is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, he talks to Susan Gray, who has written this month’s book club essay about the book (read it at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/books-arts/book-club) The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land is a collection of 11 short stories. They are all set in modern-day Israel, transporting the reader to the lush orange groves in Jaffa, the arid Negev desert, and the narrow alleyways of Jerusalem. The stories are set against the conflict in the region, but the focus remains on the individual characters with their own tales of love, heartbreak, loss, and strife. The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land is published by John Murray Press at £14.99 (Church Times Bookshop £13.49); 978-1-399-80394-6. Omer Friedlander is a young Israeli-born writer who now lives in Brooklyn, in New York City. He was born in Jerusalem in 1994, and grew up in Tel Aviv, before studying English Literature at the University of Cambridge. From there, he continued his studies in the United States, and achieved an MFA from Boston University, supported by the Saul Bellow Fellowship. His writing has achieved global success in Canada, France, Israel, and the US, and his short stories have won many literary awards, including first place in the Baltimore Review Winter Contest, and the Shmuel Traum Literary Translation Prize. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Tickets are now on sale for the next Festival, which takes place in Winchester in February. For more information and to buy tickets, visit https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Picture creidt: © Yab Traiber

On the podcast this week, the Bishop of Maine, the Rt Revd Thomas James Brown, talks to Madeleine Davies about the American Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Elizabeth Strout – many of whose books are set in the State of Maine, New England. They discuss, among other things, Strout’s depiction of the Puritan mindset, the challenges of small-town ministry, and how clergy might respond to the gossip that occurs in their communities. Bishop Brown also considers the comparison often made between Elizabeth Strout and Marilynne Robinson. Madeleine has written a feature on Elizabeth Strout for this week’s Church Times (16 December). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This week, the Revd Michael Coren is interviewed about his book The Rebel Christ. The book is is published in the UK by Canterbury Press and is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop for the discounted price of £10.39. Michael is a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada, a contributing columnist for the Toronto Star, and the author of more than 18 books. He also writes regularly for publications such as the Globe and Mail, The New Statesman, and the Church Times. Once a high-profile figure in conservative Roman Catholicism in Canada, about a decade ago Michael changed his mind on issues such as same-sex marriage and embraced a more progressive form of Christian faith. It cost him his lucrative broadcasting career and made him the target of vitriol, but he says he found freedom in the radical and progressive nature of the gospel. The Rebel Christ starts with the question: "Why is it that the purest, most supremely liberating philosophy and theology in all of history is now seen by so many people around the world as intolerant, legalistic, and even irrelevant religion embraced only by the gullible, the foolish, and the judgmental?" Interview by Ed Thornton https://michaelcoren.com Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, James Runcie talks to Sarah Meyrick about his new memoir, Tell Me Good Things: On love, death and marriage. It tells the story of his love for his late wife, Marilyn Imrie, a drama director, singer, and artist, who died of motor neurone disease (MND) in August 2020. “It’s about grief, and love. And I hope it’s also about gratitude and thank fulness,” Runcie says. James Runcie is an award-winning novelist, playwright, and film-maker. He is the author of twelve novels including the seven books in the Grantchester Mysteries series, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His most recent novel is The Great Passion (Books, 8 April). Tell Me Good Things is published by Bloomsbury at £12.99 (Church Times Bookshop £11.69); 978-1526655448. James Runcie will be in conversation with the tenor James Gilchrist at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature in February 2023. Tickets available now at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/ Photo credit: KT Bruce Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On this accompanying podcast, Dr Natalie K. Watson, who has written the Book Club essay about the book, talks to Sarah Meyrick. The book is published by Picador at £8.99 and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.09. Dr Natalie K. Watson is a theologian, writer, and editor, living in Peterborough. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Tickets are now on sale for the next Festival, which takes place in Winchester in February. For more information and to buy tickets, visit https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at https://www.facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub About the book: Inspired by the Vardø storm and the witch trials in northern Norway in 1621, The Mercies follows the lives of the women who are left behind on their remote island after a ferocious storm wipes out all the men at sea. In the storm’s wake, the women learn to embrace independence, but their newfound strength is put to the test when an official arrives from the mainland armed with the task of dismantling their power and restoring male domination. The women’s independence is perceived as subversive, and charges of witchcraft soon follow. A chilling witch hunt begins.

On the podcast this week, the novelist Robert Harris talks to Susan Gray about his latest book, Act of Oblivion. The novel takes place in the aftermath of the English Civil War, and swings between Restoration England and pre-Independence, Puritan New England. “A huge manhunt was started: 59 people signed the death warrant of Charles I, and there were about 30 left alive,” Harris says. “They were wanted, together with anyone who had sat as a judge on the King. A manhunt would make good structure for a novel, especially if I could invent a manhunter-in-chief: someone must have co-ordinated this hunt which went on across the Continent and throughout England.” The book is reviewed in this week’s 12-page Christmas Books supplement, and a write up of the interview also appears. Robert Harris is the author of 15 best-selling novels, including Fatherland, Conclave, Munich, and The Second Sleep (Books, 29 November 2019). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Act of Oblivion is published by Hutchinson Heinemann at £22 (Church Times Bookshop £19.80); 978-1-5291-5175-6. Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams considers the significance of the Christian hope of a new heaven and a new earth. The talk was delivered this week in St Martin-in-the-Fields, in central London, as part of its autumn lecture series, “What am I living for?”, in partnership with the Church Times. The next lecture in the series, on Monday 21 November, is by Grayson Perry, and is on the theme of art. Book tickets at https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whatson-event/what-am-i-living-for-art Rowan Williams will be delivering the Sir Tony Baldry Lecture at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which takes place in Winchester in February. Find out more about the festival programme and how to buy tickets at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Day That Went Missing by Richard Beard is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, he talks to Sarah Meyrick, who has written this month’s Book Club essay about the memoir. The book, which won the 2018 PEN Ackerley Award for literary autobiography, is published by Vintage and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.99. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. Tickets are now on sale for the next Festival, which takes place in Winchester in February. For more information and to buy tickets, visit https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/ Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at https://www.facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On the podcast this week, Jo Swinney talks to Sarah Meyrick about A Place at The Table: Faith, hope and hospitality. The book is a joint project with Jo’s late mother, Miranda Harris, who died suddenly in October 2019. Mrs Harris and her husband, Peter, founded the Christian conservation charity A Rocha International. In an age when loneliness and isolation have reached unprecedented levels, the book calls for Christians to embrace the practice of hospitality — which can be simpler and more profound than is often imagined. “To be hospitable doesn’t require culinary excellence or matching cutlery — it doesn’t even require a home of one's own; true hospitality offers a welcome into imperfection and messiness, a place to belong and be embraced.” A Place at The Table is published by Hodder & Soughton at £16.99 (Church Times Bookshop £15.29) placeatthetable.info Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This week’s podcast features talks from the final of the Theology Slam 2022, which took place on 27 September in St Edmund Roundhay, in Leeds, as part of the HeartEdge conference “Humbler Church, Bigger God”. Theology Slam is a competition to find engaging young voices who think theologically about the contemporary world. Its organised jointly by the Church Times, SCM Press, and HeartEdge. The first finalist to speak is Alex Clare-Young, a pioneer minister in the United Reformed Church, currently serving in Cambridge, who is in the final stages of submitting a thesis for a Ph.D. in queer theologies at the University of Birmingham. Alex, who is a trans non-binary person, spoke on the implications of the incarnation for how Christians think about the body. The second finalist is Victoria Turner, also a member of the URC, who is in the final stages of a Ph.D. in world Christianity at the University of Edinburgh, where she is exploring developments in Christian mission. Victoria spoke on the theme of justice in relation to Amos 5. The third finalist is Amanda Higgin, who is training as a Baptist minister at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, alongside working towards a Master’s degree in New Testament theology, with a focus on the Letter to the Hebrews. Amanda's talk was on the topic of recovery. Watch the whole event, including, judges’ feedback and Q&A, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9E4CHXphg4&ab_channel=ChurchTimes Read the winning talk at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2022/7-october/comment/opinion/theology-slam-winner-wandering-from-pain-to-healing Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Find out about forthcoming Church Times events at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

To Calais, In Ordinary Time by James Meek is the choice for this month's Church Times Book Club - and on the podcast this week, the author speaks to Rachel Mann (who has written this month's Book Club essay about it). The book is published by Canongate and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.99. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Tickets are now on sale for the next Festival, which takes place in Winchester in February. For more information and to buy tickets, visit https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub About the book: To Calais In Ordinary Time is a work of historical fiction set in England in 1348. It covers the story of a group of travellers journeying towards Calais across England as the Black Death sweeps across Europe. Written in a way to capture the authenticity of spoken medieval English, the language is interspersed with Middle English words. The young noblewoman’s language is marked by Norman French, the learned proctor’s language is punctuated with Latinisms, and the language of the down-to-earth adventurous ploughman is more Saxon. It is a novel about life, love, death, and war, set during a time of turbulence and uncertainty across Europe. Picture credit: © MARZENA POGORSALY Music for the podcast is by Twisterium Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Matt Rowland Hill talks to Sarah Meyrick about his critically acclaimed memoir, Original Sins. The book tells the story of growing up as the son of an Evangelical Baptist minister in South Wales and then Leighton Buzzard, fraught with bitter family conflict and fear of damnation. After rejecting religion in his late teens , he became addicted to crack and heroin, eventually being set on the path to recovery with the help of a Christian rehab charity. “They had a different style of Christianity to my parents’,” he says. “They felt that they were helping me because they were expressing God’s love, and that just blew my mind. . . “Did I then become the prodigal son and come back to Christianity? It would have made a very nice story if I had.” Original Sins is published by Chatto & Windus at £16.99 (Church Times Bookshop £15.29) Picture credit: Laura Lewis Music for the podcast is by Twisterium Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Dame Hilary Mantel, the acclaimed author of the Wolf Hall trilogy, has died aged 70, her publisher has announced. At an event at Launde Abbey in 2019, Dame Hilary reflected on the life of Thomas Cromwell and his place in the Reformation. The short talk that she gave at the start of the event is featured on this week’s podcast. It was recorded about a year before the publication of the final book in the triology, The Mirror & the Light (Fourth Estate) (Books, 12 June 2020). The full event, at which the Revd Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch also spoke, can be listened to https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2019/2-august/regulars/podcast/hilary-mantel-and-diarmaid-macculloch-at-launde-abbey-remembering-thomas-cromwell An edited record of their talks and conversation can be read at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2019/2-august/features/features/make-something-of-me-creating-thomas-cromwell Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Since the death of Her Majesty the Queen last week, many have drawn attention to her deep Christian faith, which inspired dedicated, humble service during her 70-year reign. On the podcast this week, the Rt Revd Graham James, a former Bishop of Norwich, talks about the late Queen’s Christian faith and her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. He has also written an article in this week’s Church Times, which can be read at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk. There is also extensive coverage of tributes, funeral plans, an obituary, and more. “One of the things that really struck me was that the Queen’s faith was interwoven entirely and completely with the rest of her life,” he says. “And I think it came out of an era in which she was formed in which the Book of Common Prayer was still the absolute bedrock of the Church of England, in which the assumption is that God is woven into part of human life and is not a leisure activity for weekends or something that appeals to only a section of the population. . . He says later in the interview: “The Queen did move with the times. . . she accommodated herself, without changing in herself, to a changing culture. But the one thing that she didn’t cease to do, which much of England had ceased to do during her reign, was go to church and speak of the importance of the Christian faith to her. “What we saw was a country that never wanted the Queen, let alone the rest of the Royal Family, to give up going to church, but wanted sometimes to do this on their behalf, because they saw in her a unity between Church and State, they saw in her, as a figurehead without political power, a means of creating harmony in the country. And I think instinctively people realised that came from a deeply held Christian conviction on her part.” Picture credit: Alamy Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

A Terrible Kindness, the debut novel by Jo Browning Wroe, is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club — and on the podcast this week, the author speaks to the Revd Malcolm Doney (who has written this month’s Book Club essay about it). The book is published by Faber & Faber at £14.99 (Church Times Bookshop £13.49). Jo Browning Wroe has an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, and is Creative Writing Supervisor at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. A Terrible Kindness, a Sunday Times bestseller, was inspired by conversations that she had with two embalmers who had volunteered to help at the Aberfan disaster when they were young men in 1966, and from her own childhood experience of growing up at a crematorium in Birmingham where her father was a supervisor (fuller synopsis below). The Book Club podcast is a monthly series launched recently in association with the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Jo Browning Wroe will be a speaker at the next festival, in February 2023. Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at https://www.facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub About A Terrible Kindness: The fictional story of a newly qualified embalmer William Lavery, who, on hearing the news of the Aberfan disaster in 1966, volunteers to help. The experience alters him profoundly, forcing him to revisit the painful losses in his own life — the death of his father, the disappointment of a lost musical career, and an estranged relationship with his mother. The story charts William’s inner turmoil over the ensuing years: covering his attempts to find redemption by mending fractured relationships, reconnecting with music, and reaching out to others. The story ends with his return to the disaster site 17 years later. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

The Revd Guy Hewitt is to be the first Racial Justice Director of the Church of England, it was announced this week. In April 2018, when he was the High Commissioner for Barbados to the United Kingdom, Mr Hewitt was interviewed on the Church Times Podcast about the campaign he led for thousands of members of the Windrush generation to be recognised as British citizens. He had written about it in the Church Times earlier that month, as the campaign was gathering pace (Comment, 13 April 2018). “The policy U-turn that the Government made in less than two weeks of this becoming an issue was, for me, a modern-day miracle,” he said in the interview. “It was unprecedented for a government to take such a drastic and radical change of position in such a time-frame.” Later in the interview, he said: “What we were in this for was to get justice for the Windrush generation. For me it’s not about recriminations or even who is at fault: it is about continuing to work forward to find a solution.” He concluded: “One of the roles of that the Church of England, that the Christian community, that the interfaith community can do is to find a way of reinforcing the love, the togetherness, the solidarity that exists. "This country has got to find a way, once and for all in the 21st century, when we are talking about a modern, global Britain, to be able to put aside all forms of discrimination and move forward as a single people, united under one Kingdom, which is Great Britain.”

Night of Fire by Colin Thubron is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club — and on the podcast this week, the author is interviewed by Francis Martin (who has written this month’s Book Club essay about it). Thubron is an acclaimed travel writer and novelist, whose eight novels and 11 works of non-fiction make up an oeuvre that transports readers around the globe, and deep into the human psyche. He is a former President of the Royal Society of Literature. As well as talking about Night of Fire (synopsis below), the conversation explores the relationship between travel writing and fiction, faith and neuroscience, and the part played by doubt in the creative process. The conversation was recorded at Colin Thubron’s home in west London. This is the fourth Book Club podcast, a monthly series launched recently in association with the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Night of Fire is published by Vintage at £8.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.09). Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub About Night of Fire: A fire spreads through a house, threatening to engulf the six tenants: a failed priest, an atheist neurosurgeon, and an obsessive photographer, along with a naturalist, a schoolboy, and a traveller. Each has lived a fascinating life, conjured in Thubron’s lyrical prose. But, as the inferno courses through the building, we start to notice inexplicable resonances between the lives of the tenants: motifs that recur and details that repeat, and that surely cannot all be explained as coincidence. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Malcolm Guite talks about the faith of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the anniversary of whose death was marked on Monday (25 July). Part of the interview featured on the very first episode of the Church Times Podcast, in 2017, shortly after the publication of his book Mariner: A voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Hodder & Stoughton) (Books, 10 February 2017). “Coleridge roots our own capacity to know through the imagination with the divine imagination. And he sees the imagination with which we perceive the world as an echo in the finite mind of the eternal and infinite act of creation in the divine”, Malcolm says. “That’s dynamite, that’s an amazing thing he’s actually saying: anybody engaged in a moment of artistic apprehension and intuition is echoing the way God made the world and helping to see it.” After the interview, Malcolm reads a sonnet that he wrote for Coleridge. It was recorded in St Michael’s, Highgate, in north London, where Coleridge is buried. Malcolm’s most recent book is Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God (Canterbury Press) (Faith feature, 13 May, Books 1 July). The Revd Dr Malcolm Guite is a Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and writes the weekly Poet’s Corner column for the Church Times. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, the Revd Dr Andrew Atherstone talks about his new book, Repackaging Christianity: Alpha and the building of a global brand — the first book length history of the Alpha movement. It’s published by Hodder & Stoughton and is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the reduced price of £19.80. The book “tells the remarkable story of Alpha . . . from its origins in the West London dinner party set of the 1970s, turbo charged by the influence of John Wimber and the Toronto Blessing in the 1990s, to what is now an international movement embraced on every continent in the world”. On the podcast, Dr Atherstone talks about what he uncovered while researching the book, explains how Alpha has evolved over the years, and addresses some of the criticisms that have been directed at the movement, from within and outside the Church. Dr Atherstone is Latimer Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and a member of Oxford University's Faculty of Theology and Religion. His previous books include a biography of the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Justin Welby: Risktaker and Reconciler (DLT, 2014). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Ali Campbell talks about why he believes that youth and children’s work is facing a crisis — and what can be done to support this ministry. Ali is leading a new association, Paraklesis, to support lay people in youth, children’s, and family’s ministry, which is supported by the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow. Read more about it here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2022/8-july/news/uk/new-association-offers-support-to-lay-workers-and-volunteers-in-youth-and-children-s-ministries Ali says: “Paraklesis, taken from the Greek, really just means to be alongside, to journey with, to be an advocate for. It’s where we get “Paraclete”, that sense of the Holy Spirit being the Comforter, and the one who is alongside us. So that’s why the name is what it is, because we want that to be what the organisation does.” Ali runs The Resource, a youth- and children’s-ministry consultancy, and is a former youth adviser for the diocese of Chichester. His books include Follow Me! (Kevin Mahew). https://www.paraklesis.org.uk https://theresource.org.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Widowland by C. J. Carey is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club — and on the podcast this week, Sarah Meyrick interviews the author, Jane Thynne (who wrote the book under the pen name C.J. Carey). The book was suggested by the Revd Richard Lamey, who has written this month’s Church Times Book Club essay about it. This is the third Book Club podcast, a monthly series launched recently in association with the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Widowland is published by Quercus at £8.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.09); 978-1-5294-1200-0. Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month's book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub About Widowland: The Coronation is approaching, but it is 1953 in an alternative universe, and Princess Elizabeth won’t be taking the throne. Widowland imagines a world in which Britain made peace with Germany in 1940. Under this new alliance, many of the men have been sent to the continent, or disappeared. As women now greatly outnumber men, they are categorised, when they reach 18, into a range of roles which shape everything about their future. Women over 50, and those too old to give birth, become marginalised and fall into the bottom rung of society. They live in a ghetto, Widowland. Outbreaks of insurgency emerge, and the Ministry of Culture gives the heroine, Rose, the task of infiltrating Widowland to find the source of this uprising. Will she carry out her instructions and betray the women? Picture credit: © Charles Kerr Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, the comedian and writer Paul Kerensa talks about the expanding and lucrative world of the Christian film industry. Paul has written two features for the Church Times exploring a century’s worth of Christian film. The first part was on cinema, and the second part on the rise of streaming services. Both can be read at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk Paul is a writer of books including So a Comedian Walks into a Church, TV shows including Not Going Out and Miranda, and plays including The First Broadcast, which is on tour now: https://paulkerensa.com/tour Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Sarah Meyrick interviews the Revd Richard Coles about his new book, Murder Before Evensong — a crime novel and his first foray into fiction. The book introduces us to Coles’s clerical sleuth: the Rector of Champton, Canon Daniel Clement, who shares the rectory with his widowed mother, Audrey, and two dachshunds, Cosmo and Hilda. “I think anyone who’s been in parish ministry will find the life of the parish priest in some ways maps on to that of a detective,” Coles says. “Because you’re kind of looking at the exterior of things, and for disruptions in the pattern, and wondering what that might tell you about what’s going on underneath.” Coles also talks about how he is finding life after having left parish ministry Murder Before Evensong is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in hardback and eBook at £16.99, and audio download (Church Times Bookshop £13.59, with signed copies available while stocks last). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church has been meeting in Edinburgh this week — the first time it has met in person since 2019 (although it has been set up as a hybrid gathering to include members who wish to participate over video link). Francis Martin has been there to report for the Church Times. He sat down on Saturday with the Primus, the Most Revd Mark Strange, Bishop of Moray, Ross & Caithness, to talk about how the meeting has gone. Bishop Strange also spoke about how the Scottish Episcopal Church is responding to the climate crisis; the recent St Andrew’s Declaration with the Church of Scotland (News, 3 December 2021); the mediation process in the diocese of Aberdeen & Orkney (News, 8 October 2021); and the forthcoming Lambeth Conference. Detailed reports of the Synod will be published in the 17 June issue of the Church Times and online in the coming days. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, a chance to listen again (or perhaps for the first time) to the finalists’ talks in the 2021 Theology Slam, a competition to find engaging young voices who think theologically about the contemporary world. The first talk is by Imogen Ball, a final year ordinand and MA student at Trinity College Bristol, speaking on “Creativity in a time of pandemic”. She is followed by Joshua House, a recent theology graduate from the University of Leeds who is now a trainee RE teacher, and who speaks on “Community in a time of pandemic”. The final talk is by Flo O’Taylor, a Ph.D. student at Durham University, on “Justice in a time of pandemic”. The 2022 Theology Slam competition is organised jointly by the Church Times, SCM Press, and Heartedge, and is open to anyone aged 18 to 35. Entries close at 11.59pm on Monday 6 June. To enter, visit https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/theology-slam-entry-form-2022 Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week, we bring you the second episode of the Church Times Book Club podcast, a monthly series launched last month in association with the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. This month, Sarah Meyrick talks to Stephen Brown, the Church Times film critic, about the title he chose for this month’s Book Club: Jack by Marilynne Robinson. It is the fourth novel in a series: the other books are Gilead, Home, and Lila. But it is not necessary to know the other three books that precede it, Stephen says. “In some ways Jack is easier to access than the other ones, he says. “The previous books have been about a later period, whereas now we’re coming the understanding of where Jack is coming from. “It’s just immediately after the Second World War, it’s set in St Louis, Missouri, and it’s got a cast of Jack, who is a bit of a prodigal son, and his meeting with Della. She is black and he is white in a highly segregated society.” Stephen has also written about the book for this month’s Church Times Book Club feature. He writes: “Characters do, indeed, look through a glass darkly. Their perceptions are never wholly true. The preceding volumes furnished other (only partial) understandings of Jack. Calvin’s notion of depravity was based on the warped mirrors of his time, which failed to give the full picture. Jack, through sins of commission, sees himself as hopelessly incapable of being what he is meant to be.” Jack is published by Little, Brown at £8.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.09); 978-0-349-01179-0. Read previous Church Times Bookclub articles at www.churchtimes.co.uk/books-arts/book-club Find out more about the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature at faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Sir John Major, who was Prime Minister of the UK from 1992 to 1997, delivered a speech this week at the National Cathedrals Conference in Newcastle Cathedral. The conference, “Different Country, Different Church”, included talks, workshops, and debate about the direction of the Church on social, racial, and climate justice. Sir John spoke about the challenges facing the Church of England, in particular the “Herculean task” of maintaining its parish churches and cathedrals. “The lion’s share of the cost of maintaining this huge community asset falls on the diminishing number of regular worshippers. This is unjust. Some argue that it may be necessary to close churches, reduce the number of stipendiary clergy, and sell assets. I do hope not.” He also addressed issues in wider society, such as asylum and immigration, Brexit, Covid, and the cost-of-living crisis. “In times of austerity, we are told that we are ‘all in it together’,” he said. “If so, then logically, we should ‘all be in it together’ in times of prosperity. I hope the Government will devise a policy that encourages ‘trickle down’ and shares national growth more fairly.” An extended extract from the speech is featured on this week’s podcast. Read the full speech at https://www.englishcathedrals.co.uk/latest-news/john-major-conference-speech-full-transcript. Read more about other talks at the conference at https://www.englishcathedrals.co.uk/news. Picture credit: Simon Bray Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Tom Holland interviews Sam Wells about his latest book, Humbler Faith, Bigger God: Finding a story to live by. Their conversation was recorded at an online book launch this week. Watch the full event, including Q&A, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4iTXOWSFag. In a review of the book published in The Church Times (Books, 29 April), John Saxbee writes: “While recent books have made a cogent case for Christianity today, Samuel Wells here succeeds in making that case in the light of, rather than in spite of, its cultural despisers. His approach is original, accessible, and compelling. . . “Each of ten topics has a separate chapter following a set pattern: the traditional Christian story; what’s wrong with it; the secular humanist rival to it; the rival’s flaws; Wells’s ‘story to live by’, and how this differs from the traditional and rival alternatives. It’s a methodology as old as Aquinas, but in Wells’s hands it feels as fresh as new paint.” Humbler Faith, Bigger God is published by Canterbury Press and is available from the Church House Bookshop for £14.99; 978-1-78622-418-7. The Revd Dr Sam Wells is the Vicar of St Martin-in-the Fields, in central London, and is the author of more than 30 books. Other recent books, also published by Canterbury Press, include Finding Abundance in Scarcity (Books, 6 August 2021), A Cross in the Heart of God (Books 22 January 2021), and Love Mercy (Books, 12 February 2021). Tom Holland is a historian, author, and broadcaster. His books include Dominion: The making of the Western mind (Little, Brown) (Features, Podcast, 27 September 2019), which Sam Wells talks about at the start of the podcast. Tom Holland co-hosts the hugely popular podcast The Rest is History. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week, we launch the Church Times Book Club Podcast, a new monthly series produced in association with the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. This month, Sarah Meyrick talks to Susan Gray about a title she chose for this month’s Church Times Book Club: The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by the Australian writer Richard Flannagan (who also wrote The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which won the 2014 Booker Prize). The Living Sea of Waking Dreams tells the story of three Tasmanian siblings — Anna, Terzo, and Tommy — who are caring for their mother, Francie, at the end of her life. Flanagan wrote the novel in 2016, during the Tasmanian bushfires, and then updated it the next year when bushfires raged across Australia. “Climate change and wildlife extinction is deftly woven into a story of familial bonds and end-of-life care, and works as a broader canvas supporting the central narrative,” Susan writes in this week’s Church Times (6 May). The Living Sea of Waking Dreams is published by Vintage at £8.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.09); 978-1-5291-1405-8. Susan Gray writes about the arts and entertainment for The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, and the Daily Mail. Picture credit: © JOEL SAGET Read previous Church Times Bookclub articles at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/books-arts/book-club Find out more about the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Nick Spencer, senior fellow at the think tank Theos, talks about how the science v. religion debate has developed since the New Atheist movement came to prominence more than 15 years ago. Nick is the co-author, along with Hannah Waite, of a new report 'Science and Religion: Moving away from the shallow end', produced by Theos and the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. Read our story about it at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk In a Comment article for the Church Times this week (29 April), Nick writes: “People — in particular, certain kinds of atheist — do claim that science and religion are in complete tension. But it is not always clear where this alleged tension lies. To put it another way, there is a great deal of smoke hanging about the science and religion debate, the fog of an allegedly ancient war. But, beneath the smoke, where exactly is the fire?” Nick Spencer hosts the 'Reading Our Times' podcast, produced by Theos, which explores the books and ideas that are shaping us today. In 2019, he presented a three-part series on Radio 4, 'The Secret History of Science and Religion' (Comment, 21 June 2019, Radio, 28 June 2019). His next book, 'Magisteria: The entangled histories of science and religion', will be published by Oneworld Publications in March next year. His previous books include 'The Political Samaritan: How power hijacked a parable' (Bloomsbury, 2017), 'Mighty and the Almighty: How political leaders do God' (Biteback, 2017), and 'Evolution of the West: How Christianity has shaped our values' (SPCK, 2016). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Dr Mark Vernon interviews Professor Robin Dunbar about his new book, How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures. Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Anthropological Institute. How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures is published by Pelican at £22 (Church Times Bookshop £19.80) Mark Vernon is a psychotherapist and writer. His recent books include Dante’s “Divine Comedy”: A guide for the spiritual journey (Angelico Press, 2021) and A Secret History of Christianity (John Hunt Publishing, 2019). Picture credit: Alamy Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams joined other faith leaders on a visit to Ukraine this week. Its purpose, he said, was “affirm our solidarity with victims of this appalling war, and express thanks for the courage shown by the Ukrainian people, in the hope that we can at least let them know that they are not forgotten”. During the visit, Lord Williams, along with other faith leaders, spoke at an event in Chernivtsi, "Faith in Ukraine," organised by the Elijah Interfaith Institute and the Peace Department. His two addresses at the event follow, and are used with the permission of the organisers. A video of the full event can be found at https://faithinukraine.com/stream/ Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Sam Wells preaches a sermon on Psalm 23, which was given online this week at the Festival of Preaching event “Preaching in Perilous Times,” hosted by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. “It may not be much of a stretch to say the 23rd Psalm was composed for the Ukrainian experience of death, destruction, horror, and fear in the face of Russian invasion,” he says. “We have many questions in the face of the horror of war and the shock of one European country invading another, something we regarded as unthinkable. Psalm 23 doesn’t answer our questions; instead, it transforms our context." The other speakers at the Festival of Preaching event were Malcolm Guite, Pádraig Ó Tuama, Rachel Mann, Lucy Winkett, and Angela Tilby. Buy a ticket to watch the whole event at https://festivalofpreaching.hymnsam.co.uk/preaching-in-perilous-times. The Revd Dr Sam Wells is the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, in central London, and is the author of more than 30 books. His most recent, published by Canterbury Press, include Finding Abundance in Scarcity, A Cross in the Heart of God, and Love Mercy. The are all available to buy at https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk Find out about forthcoming Church Times events at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Cole Arthur Riley is a writer, liturgist, and poet, and the creator of Black Liturgies, “a project seeking to integrate concepts of dignity, lament, rage, justice, rest, and liberation with literature and spirituality”. On this week’s podcast, she talks about her debut book This Here Flesh: Spirituality, liberation and the stories that make us, which is a New York Times bestseller. An extract is published in this week’s Church Times (1 April). Cole is in conversation with Chine McDonald, director of Theos, whose latest book is God is Not a White Man: And other revelations (Hodder & Stoughton) (Podcast, 28 May 2021; (Books, 11 June 2021) This Here Flesh is published by John Murray Press and is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the discounted price of £14.99. https://colearthurriley.com/ Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Professor Helen Bond and Professor Joan Taylor talk about their new book book, Women Remembered: Jesus’ female disciples. Inspired by their Channel 4 documentary Jesus’ Female Disciples, the book examines how a host of women — named and unnamed — have been remembered (or silenced) by posterity. It looks at the representation of these women in art, and how they have been represented in inscriptions and archaeology, as well as in biblical texts. Women Remembered is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £16.99 (CT Bookshop £15.29) Dr Helen K. Bond is Professor of Christian Origins and Head of the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. Dr Joan Taylor is Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism at King’s College London. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, Dr Leo Cheng, Consultant in Oral, Maxillofacial and Head & Neck Surgery at St Bartholomew’s, The Royal London and Homerton University Hospitals, talks about the work of Mercy Ships. For more than 20 years, he has volunteered during his holidays on board the Africa Mercy, performing life-saving and life-changing operations. Earlier this month, a new purpose-built ship, Global Mercy, set sail for Africa from Rotterdam. The charity says that the new ship will more than double its surgical and training capacity (News, 9 July 2021). Speaking in Rotterdam before the ship set sail, Princess Anne, who is a Patron of Mercy Ships, said: “A mixture of volunteers bring brilliant surgery, knowledge, and medical skills, from countries all over the world — but everybody who comes here has a skill and is happy to serve in whatever capacity will help the whole. The success Mercy Ships has had training doctors, dentists and medics to carry out the work in the future in their own countries — that is a real legacy.” Find out more about Mercy Ships at https://www.mercyships.org.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Fr Luigi Gioia reflects on the theme of “Lent as the time of healing.” His talk was given at an online Lent Retreat last Saturday, hosted by the Church Times and the Church House Bookshop. Buy a recording of the entire event at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/lent-retreat. Fr Gioia is a freelance writer and speaker in theology and spirituality and Associate Priest of St Paul’s, Knightsbridge, in London. His books include The Wisdom of St Benedict: Monastic spirituality and the life of the Church (Canterbury Press), Touched by God (Bloomsbury), and Say it to God (Bloomsbury), which was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 2018 Lent Book. They are all available to buy at the Church House Bookshop: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk Find out about forthcoming Church Times events at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, the Revd Mpho Tutu van Furth talks about her book Forgiveness and Reparation, The Healing Journey. The conversation with Catherine Fox was recorded at Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which took place online on 19 February. The theme of the festival was Finding Hope. Buy a recording of the whole event at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/february-2022/ Forgiveness and Reparation, in the My Theology series published by Darton, Longman & Todd, is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop. Read an extract here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2022/11-february/features/features/forgiveness-and-reparation-dance-begins-with-love Mpho Tutu van Furth is a South African pastor, author, artist, and activist. She is the daughter of Archbishop Desmond and Leah Tutu and the founding director of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation. Find out about forthcoming Church Times events, including an online Lent retreat on Saturday (5 March), at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events Find out more about the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Hugh Williamson talks about the distinctive ministry of worker priests/Ministers in Secular Employment (MSEs), which are the subject of a cover feature that he has written for this week’s Church Times. Hugh’s father, Canon Tony Williamson, was an Anglican worker priest in a car factory in Oxford for 30 years (Obituary, 22 March 2019), so Hugh has long had an interest in this ministry. In his feature this week, he talks to a priest who is a full-time hairdresser, another who, until recently, was a checkout worker at a supermarket, a priest who is a carer, and another who works in a café. “Talking to them, and others like them, reveals a refreshing approach to faith, focused on how we express and support faith in everyday settings, not only in church buildings,” he writes. “And it challenges the Church to reflect on what ministry means.” https://www.hughwilliamson.org/ Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, we revisit an episode from a year ago, in which the Anglican novelist Francis Spufford talks about and reads from his second novel, Light Perpetual (Faber and Faber), which is now available in paperback from the Church House Bookshop: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk It was recorded last year at a one-day online event organised by the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Since it was published last year, the book made the long list for the Booker Prize (News, 30 July 2021). Francis Spufford’s first novel, Golden Hill (Reading Groups, 3 March 2017), won the Costa First Novel Award 2016. He has also written five highly praised works of non-fiction, including Unapologetic: Why, despite everything Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense (Books, 4 October 2013; Features, 7 September 2012), which was shortlisted for the 2016 Michael Ramsey Prize. The next Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature takes place online on Saturday (19 February). Find out more and book tickets at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/february-2022 Photo credit: Eamonn McCabe/Popperfoto Music for the podcast is by Twisterium

The Bishop of Dover, the Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, is interviewed on the podcast this week about a new Lent course that she has written, The Room Where it Happens, based on the smash-hit musical Hamilton. In a review of Lent books and resources in the Church Times, David Wilbourne writes: “In The Room Where it Happens, Rose Hudson-Wilkin comes to house groups, wherever they may be, watching the smash-hit musical Hamilton with them, and introducing staid Anglicans to hip-hop. She parallels her own immigrant experience with Alexander Hamilton’s, blisteringly honest about her humble origins, the ensuing hurts, and the dreams that fired her. . . “In 22 years of parish ministry, I ran many Lent house groups, and, as a bishop, I addressed larger Lent gatherings. I sense that this course will work brilliantly.” The Room Where it Happens is published by Darton, Longman & Todd, and is on offer at the Church Times Bookshop. Music for the podcast is by Twisterium Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, the Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie, priest and writer, reads a profound and moving article he wrote for the 4 February edition of the Church Times. Titled “In the end is my beginning,” it’s about a funeral he conducted recently with unexpected and deeply personal resonances. He is the author of A Field Guide to the English Clergy (Books, 30 November 2018, Podcast, 7 December 2018) and Priests de la Résistance! The loose canons who fought fascism in the twentieth century (Books, 8 November 2019, Features, 15 November 2019). Both are published by Oneworld Publications and are available to order from the Church Times Bookshop (here and here). Follow him on Twitter: @_F_B_G_ Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Cole Moreton has interviewed the famous, the infamous, and the extraordinary. He was named Interviewer of the Year in 2016 for his work in The Mail on Sunday, and was shortlisted for a fifth time in 2018. On the podcast this week, Cole reflects on the art of interviewing, and recalls memorable encounters with such people as Tiger Woods, Scarlett Johansson, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In a a forthcoming new podcast, “Can we talk?”, which launches on 8 February (produced by Hodder Faith), he reflects in each episode on a single encounter, and reflects on what such encounters have taught him about the incredible lives we live as human beings and the lessons we can learn from connecting with each other. In this week’s Church Times (28 January), we publish an edited transcript of the episode in which he describes an unforgettable encounter with Dr Tutu. His debut novel, The Light Keeper, was published in 2019 and is out now in paperback (Books, 10 January 2020; Podcast, 27 March 2020). https://shows.acast.com/cole-moretons-can-we-talk https://colemoreton.com Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Chris Mabey is interviewed on the podcast this week about the deepening political crisis in Myanmar, and the plight of Christians in the country. His book, Whispers of Hope: A family memoir of Myanmar, tells the story of how he came to understand the rich, nuanced history of Burma/Myanmar, through the family of his Burmes wife, April. He has also written on the crisis in Myanmar for this week’s Church Times (21 January). Chris Mabey is a chartered psychologist and Emeritus Professor at Middlesex University Business School. Whispers of Hope is published by Penguin Random House at £29.99 (Church Times Bookshop £26.99); 9-7898-1-495425-9. https://www.chrismabey.co.uk/ Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, the Revd Katherine Price, Chaplain of Queen’s College, Oxford, talks about her experience of Slimming World, and how it prompted her to think differently about the quest for spiritual health. She also considers whether the Slimming World’s model has lessons for the Church of England’s mission. “At Slimming World, I’d realised that I actually did have the will power and the discipline to make changes in my life that had a tangible difference,” she says. “But I was thinking, ‘Hang on a minute, I wasn’t even massively motivated to lose weight; it wasn’t my number one priority. My prayer life, which is a much bigger priority for me, why don’t I have that discipline there?’. . . “And I was wondering why is it that this really quite simple group, the Slimming World group, was enabling me to make the changes that I wanted to make in my life to lose weight; and the Church, for whatever reason, that surely should be exactly the group which is enabling me to make changes in my spiritual life, and somehow that wasn’t happening for me. And that just raised that question for me, I think.” Katherine has also written an article for this week’s Church Times. Picture credit: David Olds Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, the Revd Andy March, Vicar of St Christopher’s, Coventry, talks about his debut book Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war, an extract from which is published in this week’s Church Times (7 January). The book tells the remarkable true story of Andy’s grandparents, Fred and Rike Clayton, who first met in Dresden at the start of the Nazi era. In a foreword to the book, the Bishop of Coventry, Dr Christopher Cocksworth, writes: “It is my hope that, thanks to Andy’s efforts, the story will inspire you as much as it has inspired me, and that it will find its place as a signpost, even a landmark, along the path of reconciliation, trust and love which links Coventry and Dresden; Britain and Germany.” The book is published by Halwill Publishing and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.99. Signed copies can also be purchased at https://halwillpublishing.co.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week’s podcast returns to a Christmas interview from 2017, when Ed Thornton spoke to Paul Kerensa, the stand-up comic and comedy writer, about his book, Hark! The biography of Christmas (Lion Books) (Books, 24 November 2017). They also talked about comedy gigs in churches, comedy and evangelism, and whether preachers should tell jokes in sermons. Paul’s latest book, written with Ruth Valerio, is Planet Protectors: 52 ways to look after God’s world (SPCK) (Features, 22 October). His other books include Noah’s Car Park Ark (SPCK) (Books, 22 June 2018) and So a Comedian Walks Into a Church . . . Confessions of a kneel-down stand-up (DLT) (Books, 12 July 2013). Paul hosts the podcast British Broadcasting Century, and more information about his work, including upcoming gigs, is available at paulkerensa.com. Paul has also written for the BBC sitcom Not Going Out, some CBBC shows, and some pre-school animations for churches out next year. Treat friends and family to a gift subscription this year. We’ll send a Christmas card announcing your gift - and your choice of one of two free books! https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/christmas

“What could Shakespeare’s plays and poems teach me about the Christian faith and the God who loves me?” This is the question posed by Peter Graystone on this week’s podcast, as he reflects on the spiritual significance of a memorable scene in The Winter’s Tale. The talk was first given at an online Advent Retreat, on 27 November, hosted by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. It is introduced by Christine Smith, Publishing Director of Hymns Ancient & Modern. To access a recording of the whole event, book a ticket at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/advent-retreat Peter’s latest book, All’s Well that Ends Well: From dust to resurrection: 40 days with Shakespeare, is published by Canterbury Press and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £11.69. Peter is a writer who has worked for Scripture Union, Christian Aid, and the Church Army. He is the Church Times’s theatre critic, and a contributor to Reflections for Daily Prayer. Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, Dr Andrew Rumsey talks about his new book, English Grounds: A pastoral journal (SCM Press). The book is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £15.99, and extracts are published in this week’s Church Times (3 December). “It’s a book about places, the way that we shape them and they shape us,” he says in a short video about the book. “It’s about memory and belonging and heritage, Christian heritage especially, and the way in which the Church has shaped the nation’s story for good and ill over many centuries, and my hope that the Christian narrative can yet help us to tell a more hopeful story about England’s future.” At the end of the podcast, he reads an extract from the book and plays a song, “Silbury Hill,” which he wrote to accompany the launch of the book. Dr Rumsey is the Bishop of Ramsbury in Salisbury diocese, and the co-lead bishop for church buildings and cathedrals. His previous book is Parish: An Anglican theology of place (Features, 2 June 2017, Books, 21 July 2017). Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Picture credit: KT BRUCE Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

As the start of Advent approaches, this week's podcast returns to Malcolm Guite’s journey through “The Great O Antiphons”: seven prayers which the Church prayed during the first centuries, which called afresh for Christ to come. Malcolm reads each of the seven prayers and reflects on them, and offers his own poetic response to each one, taken from his collection Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian year (Canterbury Press). This talk was first broadcast last November during an online Advent retreat, hosted by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. The Revd Dr Malcolm Guite is a Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and writes the weekly Poet’s Corner column for the Church Times. His books include Mariner: A voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Hodder), Love Remember: 40 poems of loss, lament and hope (Canterbury Press), and David’s Crown: Sounding the Psalms (Canterbury Press). Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, a panel convened for a recent Church Times webinar answers two questions: Does the parish need saving? And what frustrates them about the current debate about the future of the parish? Watch the whole webinar — including the panel’s responses to viewers’ questions — at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/12-november/audio-video/video/does-the-parish-need-saving The panel: The Bishop of Ramsbury, Dr Andrew Rumsey, author of Parish: An Anglican Theology of Place (SCM, 2017) (Books, 21 July 2017). The diocesan secretary of Bangor, the Revd Siôn Rhys Evans. The Rural Dean of Haverstoe, and Rector of The Waltham Group, in the diocese of Lincoln, the Revd Kimberly Bohan. The Rector of The Ascension, Hulme, the Revd Azariah France-Williams, author of Ghost Ship: Institutional racism and the Church of England (SCM Press) (Podcast, 25 September 2020). Canon Angela Tilby, Canon-of-Honour at Portsmouth Cathedral, member of the Save the Parish network steering committee, and Church Times columnist It is chaired by Madeleine Davies, Senior Writer, Church Times. Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, the Revd Stephen Hance, the C of E’s Lead on Evangelism and Discipleship, talks to Madeleine Davies about research that he has carried out about how the general public views the Church of England. The research is published in a Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us: Perceptions of the Church of England (MEv135), published by Grove Books at £3.95. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, we hear from the launch of the Green Church Showcase, which took place in Glasgow on Tuesday, during the COP26 climate summit. The speakers are the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, who is the C of E’s lead bishop on the environment; Dr Ruth Valerio, director of advocacy and influencing at Tearfund; and Richard Black, senior associate at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. The Showcase, a joint production by the Church of England’s environment programme and the Church Times, highlights seven projects from different denominations (watch a video about them on our website). Read more about the Green Church Showcase in this Friday’s Church Times (5 November). Picture credit: Albin Hillert Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

THE COP26 climate-change conference begins in Glasgow, on Sunday (31 October). So this seemed like a good time to revisit a special podcast that we posted a year ago: Everybody Now, a podcast about what it means to be human on the threshold of a global climate emergency, in a time of systemic injustice and runaway pandemics. Scientists, activists, farmers, poets, and theologians talk bravely and frankly about how our biosphere is changing, about grief and hope in an age of social collapse and mass extinction, and about taking action against all the odds. On 19 October 2020, Everybody Now was released by podcasters all over the world as a collective call for awareness, grief, and loving action. With contributions from: Dr Gail Bradbrook, scientist and co-founder of Extinction Rebellion Professor Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester Dámaris Albuquerque, works with agricultural communities in Nicaragua The Rt Revd Dr Rowan Williams, theologian and poet, and a former Archbishop of Canterbury Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet, theologian, and conflict mediator Rachel Mander, environmental activist with Hope for the Future John Swales, priest and activist, and part of a community for marginalised people Zena Kazeme, Persian-Iraqi poet who draws on her experiences as a former refugee to create poetry that explores themes of exile, home, war, and heritage Flo Brady, singer and theatre maker Hannah Malcolm, Anglican ordinand, climate writer, and organiser Alastair McIntosh, writer, academic, and land rights activist David Benjamin Blower, musician, poet, and podcaster Funding and Production: This podcast was crowdfunded by a handful of good souls, and produced by Tim Nash and David Benjamin Blower (www.nomadpodcast.co.uk). Permissions: The song Happily by Flo Brady is used with permission. The song The Soil, from We Really Existed and We Really Did This by David Benjamin Blower, used with permission. The Poem The Tree of Knowledge by Pádraig Ó Tuama used with permission. The Poem Atlas by Zena Kazeme used with permission. The Poem What is Man? by Rowan Williams from the book The Other Mountain, used with permission from Carcanet Press. The Church Times Podcast will return next week (5 November).

This week, Joe Ware, senior climate journalist at Christian Aid, is on the podcast to talk about the UN climate-change conference COP26, which starts in Glasgow at the end of this month. He has written a preview of COP26 for this week’s issue of the Church Times (22 October), as part of a series of features on the climate crisis. He has also written an in-depth report in our news section on how climate campaigners of faith have been building pressure for change in advance of COP26. On the podcast, Joe expands on the themes of his articles, explaining the scale of the challenge, the part played by geo-politics in climate negotiations, and what campaigners think that COP26’s priorities should be. Picture credit: Alamy Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Peter Stanford returns to the podcast this week to talk about his new book, If These Stones Could Talk: The history of Christianity in Britain and Ireland through Twenty Buildings (Hodder & Stoughton). It’s available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £16. A press release from Hodder says of the book: “In exploring the stories of these buildings that are still so much a part of the landscape, the details of their design, the treasured objects that are housed within them, the people who once stood in their pulpits and those who sat in their pews, he builds century by century the narrative of what Christianity has meant to the nations of the British Isles, how it is reflected in the relationship between rulers and ruled, and the sense it gives about who we are and how we live with each other.” Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Ed Thornton talks to Andrew Graystone about his book Bleeding for Jesus: John Smyth and the cult of Iwerne camps (DLT (Books, 1 October). The book is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for £11.69. “I've drawn on a very wide range of sources to produce really quite a detailed account of what has happened,” Andrew says. “But I've tried to weave it together into a narrative that makes sense and is more than just a life of John Smyth. “The intention is that it should also serve the Church as a bit of a study in how spiritual abuse can happen. So, I hope that people who read the book will not just be horrified, although they will be horrified, by the ways that this man treated young men and children. But I hope they will also reflect on the ways that cultures within the Church sometimes enable abuse to happen.” Andrew Graystone is a writer, theologian, and activist. His previous books include Faith, Hope and Mischief: Tiny acts of rebellion by an everyday activist (Canterbury Press) (Podcast, 28 August 2020) and Too Much Information? Ten essential questions for digital Christians (Canterbury Press) (Podcast, 4 October 2019). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, Lucy Winkett talks about her new book Reading the Bible with your Feet (Canterbury Press): a collection of her sermons from recent years, some of which were preached during the pandemic. She is in conversation with Chine McDonald, a writer, broadcaster, and head of public engagement at Christian Aid. It was recorded at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature last weekend. The book is available from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £13.49. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781786223302/reading-the-bible-with-your-feet “Walking through scripture is . . . what I’m trying to encourage us all to do,” she says. “And to say we all have a preaching ministry . . . and that can be in a conversation, because conversation is revolutionary in scripture — it can be in conversation as much as it is standing up at the front.” During the interview, she also talks about how training for ordination in an ecumenical context has influenced her preaching, how she prepares sermons, the privilege of being a White preacher in a White-majority context, and what she learnt while preaching and leading a church during the pandemic. The Revd Lucy Winkett is Rector of St James’s, Piccadilly, in the diocese of London. Also at the Festival of Faith and Literature, Chine McDonald spoke to the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams about her most recent book, God Is Not a White Man: And other revelations (Hodder & Stoughton) (Features 21 May, Podcast, 28 May, Books, 11 June). Access to a recording of the whole event can be purchased at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/september-2021/ Picture credit: National Churches Trust/Creative Commons Find out about forthcoming Church Times events at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, the Revd Jarel Robinson-Brown talks about his book, "Black, Gay, British, Christian, Queer: The Church and the famine of grace." It’s published by SCM Press and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £15.99. He is in conversation with the Revd Winnie Varghese, who is the Rector of St Luke’s Episcopal Church, Atlanta. It was recorded at an online book launch this week, which was introduced by David Shervington, the senior commissioning editor at SCM Press. In a review of the book for the Church Times (Books, 3 September), the Revd Brunel James writes: “This book is a must-read and deserves to be a bestseller. There is a battle going on for the soul of the Church, and Jarel Robinson-Brown’s new book makes a courageous contribution to the discussion. It really should be compulsory reading for any church leader who has never thought through how we privilege the White and the heterosexual in our church life, and what this means for those among us who are Black and LGBTQ+.” The Revd Jarel Robinson-Brown is Assistant Curate of St Botolph without Aldgate, in London. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Madeleine Davies interviews the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has recently returned from sabbatical. They spoke in his study in Lambeth Palace about a range of topics, including: what he did during his sabbatical; his time spent volunteering as a hospital chaplain during the pandemic; the future of the parish (“There is no conspiracy to abolish the parish”); church-plants; clergy morale; and the ministry of the C of E in a secular society. Archbishop Welby says: “I think I would want to say to clergy . . . and to laity: We can only do what God enables us to do, and the rest is his problem. So, if you can’t do things, don’t be guilty. . . Keep a sane home life, and keep up with your friends, and do what you can, having done that, and spend time with God in prayer. “If that means we end up as a faithful remnant, so be it. But my bet is, if we do go for simpler, humbler, and so on, if we do what God resources us to do, if we don’t exhaust ourselves, and if we get rid of guilt — and I am the champion of self-imposed guilt — the Church God will grow.” Read a write up of the interview in this week's Church Times (17 September). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, Dr Mark Vernon talks about his new book, Dante’s Divine Comedy: A guide for the spiritual journey (Angelico Press)(Church Times Bookshop £16.20). This year marks 700 years since Dante’s death, and this week’s Church Times (10 September) includes features by Robin Ward and Alexander Faludy, as well as several reviews of books published to mark the anniversary. In a review of Dr Vernon’s book, Jonathan Boardman describes it as a “detailed and immensely thoughtful commentary. . . His personal experience as a psychotherapist and student of philosophy, polished further with physics, theology, and ordination, opens . . . a very special reflective door into Dante’s thinking and expression: its dreamlike design is peppered constantly with personal experience and knowledge.” Read a preview of the introduction to the book at https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book Dr Vernon’s books include A Secret History of Christianity (Christian Alternative) (Books, 20 December 2019) and The Idler Guide to Ancient Philosophy (Idler Books). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, there’s a chance to listen again (or, perhaps, for the first time) to Sarah Lothian’s interview with Susanna Clarke about her long-awaited second novel, Piranesi. The book has just been published in paperback and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.09. Dr Jane Williams, the McDonald Professor in Christian Theology at St Mellitus College, chose Piranesi as her favourite book of 2020 (Books, 27 November 2020). “Piranesi looks with loving attention at the world in which he finds himself, caring for everything that he encounters, and receiving everything as loving gift,” Dr Williams said. “Other forces see it very differently. The book is deeply satisfying, with a depth of sadness — or is it joy?” Picture credit: Sarah Lee The next Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature takes place on Saturday 25 September. For more information and to buy tickets, visit https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/ Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to the writer — and General Synod member — James Cary about his new book The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer (SPCK). An extract from the book is published in this week’s Church Times (27 August), and the book is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop. “The first thing you notice when you hear scripture read out loud really well by an actor, the first thing you notice is that it’s actually funny – not everywhere, but it’s usually surprising,” he says. “And if you hear large portions of it read, there will be lots of jokes, and there will be lots of what we would call in sitcoms ‘callbacks’, and moments where it’s like, ‘Ah, suddenly this is becoming clear’. “The book is an attempt to draw out here’s how it’s funny, here’s reading between the lines, here’s some stuff that isn’t in the Bible, but might have been running through their minds as they’re experiencing this in real time during Jesus’s earthly ministry, but also in the minds of the listeners as they are hearing it and their minds are thinking possibly what might happen next.” James’s writing credits include the BBC TV sitcoms Miranda and Bluestone 42 (Features, 1 March 2013), and the radio sitcoms Think the Unthinkable and Hut 33. His previous books include The Sacred Art of Joking (Books, 18 January 2019) and Death by Civilisation (Books, 23 August 2013); his plays include A Turbulent Priest (Arts, 26 April 2019), A Monk’s Tale (Features, 18 August 2017), and The God Particle. At the end of the interview, you can hear James reading from the book. The recording was originally posted on James’s YouTube channel, and is used with his kind permission. https://www.jamescary.co.uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week, Ed Thornton talks to the Revd Mark Nam, the founder of the Tea House, a new national network of C of E clergy of Chinese heritage. As the Tea House was launched on Monday, he said that its aim was “to support and empower clergy with Chinese-heritage in the Church of England by promoting their presence in all structures of the Church, creating connections and providing information and resources”. On the podcast, he talks more about the aims of the Tea House and the need for the Church of England and wider society to tackle the racism experienced by people of East Asian heritage, which has risen significantly since the start of the pandemic. The Revd Mark Nam is Assistant Curate of St Anne’s, Oldland, and All Saints’, Longwell Green, in south-east Bristol, and the diocese of Bristol’s Minority Ethnic Vocations Champion. https://theteahouse.org/ Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week’s podcast provides a chance to listen again, or perhaps for the first time, to an interview with Ysenda Maxtone Graham, which was first posted in July last year. She talks about her book British Summer Time Begins: The school summer holidays 1930-1980 (Little, Brown), which is now available in paperback from the Church Times Bookshop for £9.99. She also talks about holidays and churchgoing, which she wrote about last year for the Church Times (Features, 17 July 2020); Christian house-swaps and clergy holidays; and how the school summer-holiday experience has changed. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

THIS week, Ed Thornton talks to Carolyn Skinner, Events Chaplain at Sports Chaplaincy UK, about how chaplains support Olympic athletes. At this year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo, Covid restrictions mean that chaplains have been prevented from entering the Olympic Village. Carolyn explains how they have had to adapt to provide virtual pastoral support (News, 23 July). Carolyn also considers the growing awareness of mental health among athletes, which has been highlighted by the American gymnast Simone Biles’s withdrawal from some events in Tokyo (Leader comment, 30 July). Carolyn has been an Events Chaplain with Sports Chaplaincy UK since 2007, and served as a chaplain at Royal Ascot in 2007, the 2010 Winter Paralympics, the 2010 Women’s Rugby World Cup, the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics 2012, and the 2014 Commonwealth Games. She also runs “Love All, Serve All,” an annual outreach project at the Wimbledon tennis queues, as well as being a chaplain at her local gym. Carolyn has been Pastoral Support Lead for Gyms since 2016, which is a rapidly growing area for Sports Chaplaincy UK. https://sportschaplaincy.org.uk/ Picture: Team GB’s Kelly competes in the second semi final of the Women's 800 metres at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, on Saturday. She went on to win the silver medal Credit: Alamy Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

TODAY (30 July) is World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. On the podcast this week, Ed Thornton talks to Esther Swaffield-Bray, Director of England at International Justice Mission UK (IJM), about the global campaign to end slavery and human trafficking. She talks about IJM works in partnership with police, local authorities, and churches in different countries to rescue victims of slavery and trafficking, bring perpetrators to justice, and provide long-term support to survivors. She also explains why the pandemic has made more people vulnerable to exploitation, and how churches in the UK can join the campaign to end slavery and trafficking. “We are hoping that this day will be used to spread awareness around the brutal realities of human trafficking today, particularly given the context of the pandemic which has made even more people vulnerable to trafficking,” Esther says. “This is fantastic opportunity to see a light shone on this problem. . . We also want to let people know that there is hope, and that change is possible.” https://www.ijmuk.org/ https://www.un.org/en/observances/end-human-trafficking-day Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week, Ed Thornton is joined by Corin Pilling, UK director of Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries, a charity that seeks to raise awareness of mental-health issues in the Church. Corin talks about how he has navigated the challenges of lockdown, and explains what Sanctuary is doing to help churches and communities. Sanctuary UK this week launched a new app that features the “Together Again” conversation game, which prompts people to talk about the challenges that they’ve experienced during the pandemic, the anxieties they feel about restrictions being lifted, and their hopes for the future. The app is available is available for free at the usual outlets, including the Apple and Google stores. The Sanctuary Course, meanwhile, is an eight-week small group resource that is designed to help a church explore the topic of mental health through the lenses of theology, psychology, and lived experience. Corin Pilling was previously deputy director of public engagement at Livability (Interview, 19 May 2017). https://www.sanctuarymentalhealth.org/uk Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

THIS week, Ed Thornton is joined by Church Times cartoonist Dave Walker to talk about his new book on cycling: From A to B: A cartoon guide to getting around by bike (Bloomsbury). The book is on special offer at the Church Times Bookshop for £10.99. The book contains 100 full-page cartoons about the delights and challenges of cycling. The publisher describes it as a “cartoon manifesto for pedal-powered transport is a mixture of comedic insights and actually useful information, for everyone from beginners to seasoned cycling campaigners”. The broadcaster Jeremy Vine, who is a keen cyclist, has described Dave’s book as “Pure joy. Happy, generous, funny, kind, wise and full of fresh air. An absolutely wonderful book.” Dave also discusses on the podcast how more clergy and laypeople can be encouraged to cycle, especially to services. He has also written a feature about this for this week’s Church Times (16 July). https://cyclingcartoons.com https://cartoonchurch.com Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

England are through to the final of the Euros, after beating Denmark 2-1, in extra time, during a tense and thrilling semi-final match at Wembley Stadium on Wednesday night. What is it about Gareth Southgate’s approach to leadership that is inspiring the players to perform, and what lessons might there be for the Church? What does the humility of England’s players show about the link between character and performance? And what are we to make of this generation of players’ championing of social-justice causes? To discuss all this, and more, Ed Thornton is joined on the podcast this week by the Revd Peter Crumpler, a priest in the diocese of St Albans, a former communications director at Church House, Westminster, and an avid football fan. He has written previously in the Church Times about the relationship between football and faith,, and spoken about it on this podcast. The book he mentions in the interview, Thank God for Football!, by Peter Lupson, is published by SPCK and is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop. Picture credit: Alamy Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Rowan Williams talks about his new book, Looking East in Winter: Contemporary thought and the Eastern Christian tradition (Bloomsbury Continuum) (Books, 25 June). It is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £16. Lord Williams is in conversation with the RC Bishop of Trondheim, in Norway, Dr Erik Varden OCSO, who is a former Abbot of Mount St Bernard Abbey in Leicestershire (Features, 14 September 2018). The conversation was recorded at an online book launch last week, hosted by the Church House Bookshop and Bloomsbury. In the book, a Bloomsbury press release says, Lord Williams “introduces us to some aspects and personalities of the Orthodox Christian world, from the desert contemplatives of the fourth century to philosophers, novelists and activists of the modern era. He shows how this rich and diverse world opens up new ways of thinking about spirit and body, prayer and action, worship and social transformation, which go beyond the polarisations that we take for granted.” An extract from the book is published in this week’s Church Times (2 July). Lord Williams is a former Archbishop of Canterbury, and was the Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, until his retirement last year. His dozens of books include Candles in the Dark: Faith, hope and love in a time of pandemic (SPCK) (Books, 19 February); The Way of St Benedict (Bloomsbury) (Books, 13 March 2020); and On Augustine (Bloomsbury) (Books, 24 June 2016). Dr Varden’s books include The Shattering of Loneliness: On Christian Remembrance (Bloomsbury) (Books, 1 February 2019). Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, Mark Oakley explores the role of lament in the midst of a pandemic, and how the work of R. S. Thomas can help us to find a voice. His talk given last Saturday at the R. S. Thomas and ME Eldridge Society Festival, in association with the Church Times. The online festival brought together people with an appreciation of the literary and artistic works, musical compositions, people and places associated with R. S. Thomas and ME Eldridge. Purchase a ticket here to access a recording of the entire event. https://rsthomaspoetry.co.uk Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Picture credit: Alamy Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week, Ed Thornton talks to the Revd Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes about her new book How to Eat Bread: 21 nourishing ways to read the Bible (Hodder & Stoughton). It's available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the reduced price of £10.99. “I found that over the years, I’ve continually had people coming up to me quietly asking how they should read the Bible,” she says. “There are quite a lot of books at a fairly academic level, but really very little that bridges the gap between Bible-reading notes and academic books on theological hermeneutics. . . “I’m trying to bridge that gap with this book, to have something that you can give to anyone, whether they’re a new Christian or an experienced Christian, that helps them think about the Bible.” An extract from the book is published in this week’s Church Times (18 June), and it is reviewed by Canon Anthony Philips in our books pages. The Revd Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes is Team Rector of St Luke in the City, Liverpool. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week, Ed Thornton talks to Church Times columnist Paul Vallely about the cut to the international aid budget, which he describes in his column this week (11 June) as an “immoral and illegal act”. Paul explains the consequences of the cut for those in the developing world, and examines this week’s efforts in Parliament to reverse it, which culminated in an emergency Commons debate on Tuesday. He also offers his thoughts about the G7 summit, which begins tomorrow in Cornwall. “I am normally quite measured in my writing for the Church Times, but on this subject, if I sound very indignant, it’s because I am,” he says. “I think the Government has behaved particularly outrageously. The idea of taking the bread out of the mouths of starving people is just the real low point of the Boris Johnson Government.” Paul is a Senior Honorary Fellow at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester, and a writer, broadcaster, and consultant who specialises in philanthropy, business ethics, and international development. Paul’s latest book, Philanthropy: From Aristotle to Zuckerberg (Bloomsbury) (Books, 11 September 2020), is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop. Picture credit: Alamy Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, we revisit an episode from January 2020, in which Ed Thornton spoke to Dr Stephen Tomkins about his book, The Journey to the Mayflower: God’s outlaws and the invention of freedom (Hodder & Stoughton). In a review of the book, published in the Church Times in September (Books, 4 September 2020), Sarah Mortimer wrote: “Tomkins’s vivid, fast-paced prose tells the story of the men and women who struggled against what they saw as the popish pollution still infecting the English Church. What they wanted was purity, but when this seemed impossible they began instead to demand freedom: the freedom to worship God correctly. . . “The story is told with verve and panache, and Tomkins has an excellent eye for the telling quote that captures the spirit of the protagonists.” The Journey to the Mayflower is available in paperback from the Church Times Bookshop for £12.99. Stephen Tomkins is the author of eight books on Christian history, including biographies of William Wilberforce and John Wesley. He is the editor of Reform magazine, and was previously deputy editor of Third Way. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week, Dr Sanjee Perera interviews Chine McDonald about her new book, God Is Not a White Man: And other revelations (Hodder & Stoughton). The book explores what it means to be black and a woman in majority white spaces where black women are silently exiting the church, no longer able to tolerate casual racism, colonialist narratives, and lack of urgency on issues of racial justice. The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, the Most Revd Michael Curry, says of the book: “What sets Chine's message apart from other truth-tellers . . . is her willingness to share deeply from her own life, to tap into her own experience. This isn't a finger-pointing book from a position of moral self-righteousness. This is a heart-opening book from one child of God to her brothers, sisters, siblings in the family of God. . . In Chine's description of God's mosaic, and the hard, intentional work it takes to make it a reality, you can hear echoes of Dr King's words, ‘Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.’” The conversation was recorded at an online book launch on Thursday evening, organised by the Church House Bookshop. The book is on offer at the Church Times Bookshop for the price of £13.59. You can read an extract from the book in last week's Church Times (21 May). Chine McDonald is a writer, broadcaster, and head of public Engagement at Christian Aid. She writes a diary column for the Church Times. Dr Sanjee Perera is the Archbishops’ Adviser on Minority Ethnic Anglican Concerns. Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week, the poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama reads some of his sonnets and considers its the way in which sonnets can offer “a new gaze, a new point of view”. The talk was given on Saturday at an online event, “Send My Roots Rain: A poetry retreat,” organised by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. Tickets for a recording of the whole event are available at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events “The whole idea is that a sonnet is a small meditation on something that’s twisting on itself, looking at itself again, offering, perhaps, a new gaze, a new point of view,” he says. “Sometimes saying ‘this’ instead of ‘that,’ other times saying “both of these,” troubling the idea of the singular. Sometimes a sonnet starts off by saying ‘This is true,’ and then there’s the turn, and, by the end, it’s saying ‘Yeah, but this is true, too.’” Pádraig Ó Tuama’s most recent book, written with Glenn Jordan, is Borders and Belonging (Canterbury Press) (Books, 7 May). He hosts the Poetry Unbound podcast: https://onbeing.org/series/poetry-unbound/ www.padraigotuama.com Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Picture credit: David Hartley/Church Times

On the podcast this week, Ed Thornton talks to the Revd Helen Gheorghiu Gould, who is a member of the Interim Ministry Steering Group. She speaks about what interim ministry (IM) is, why it works for some parishes — such as those navigating change or seeking healing of conflict — and what the future might hold for it. Until March, Ms Gheorghiu Gould was interim-ministry adviser for Chelmsford diocese. She put together the Interim Ministry Resource Book to support and expand interim ministry in the Church of England (News, 9 April). Read more about IM and download the resource book at https://www.interimministry.org.uk/. Read a feature on Interim Ministry in this week’s Church Times (14 May). Find out about forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, Christopher Totney, director of music at St John’s, Devizes, is interviewed about his new anthem, “God Of All Creation”, which was the winner of the Royal School of Church Music’s Music Sunday competition. He is interviewed by Stefan Putigny, the Royal School of Church Music’s Magazines Editor. A recording of the anthem, sung by St Martin's Voices, is played after the interview. The world première of the anthem will be on the annual RSCM Music Sunday on 6 June, which celebrates the part played by music and musicians in church life. The podcast also features a talk by Prebendary Chris Thorpe, “Creating worship that connects: Liturgy as a tool of mission in reaching out”, which was given at the “Creativity out of Crisis” webinar last October, hosted by the Church Times and the RSCM. Prebendary Thorpe is the author of books which include Ploughshares and First Fruits: A year of festivals for the rural church (Canterbury Press) (Books, 1 January 2021) and Apprentices and Eyewitnesses: Creative liturgies for incarnational worship: Lent, Holy Week and Easter (Canterbury Press) (Books, 8 March 2019). The Church Times and the RSCM are hosting a webinar on Tuesday 18 May, “Lift Up Your Voices, Lift Up Your Hearts”, which will explore questions of music and worship. Subjects include how congregational singing could come back stronger after the pandemic, what next for choirs, and a training taster session for clergy who are not musicians. Speakers include the director of the RSCM, Hugh Morris; John Bell; Brenna Conin; and Gill Fourie. For more information and to buy tickets, visit www.churchtimes.co.uk/events Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Cole Moreton talks to Gareth Higgins about his new book, How Not to Be Afraid: Seven ways to live when everything seems terrifying. Their conversation was recorded at the UK launch of the book, held online on Thursday evening. You can watch the whole event at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMs0NEJH5mQ. In the book, Gareth explores the root causes of fear and shows how we can break its power through life-giving stories, simple spiritual exercises, and practical steps to take as individuals and communities. The book is available to buy at a 20-per-cent discount at the Church Times Bookshop. Dr Gareth Higgins is a speaker, storyteller, and activist, who grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and now lives in the United States. He is editor of The Porch Magazine. Cole Moreton is a writer and broadcaster. His debut novel The Light Keeper (Books, 10 January 2020; Podcast, 27 March 2020) is out in paperback on 21 May. https://www.hownottobeafraid.com Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, Claire Gilbert talks to Gareth Higgins about her book Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Letters on hope, death and learning to live (Hodder & Stoughton). It’s available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the reduced price of £14.99. After being diagnosed with myeloma, an incurable cancer of the blood, Claire Gilbert, who is the founder Director of the Westminster Abbey Institute, began writing to her siblings and a group of close friends about what she was going through. In a review of the book for the Church Times, Caroline Chartres writes: “This is not a book about dying, but, rather, a book about how facing death enables us truly to live.” Read the review and an extract from the book at www.churchtimes.co.uk This conversation was recorded on Saturday at an online event organised by the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, Finding Meaning. Other speakers at the event were the journalist and broadcaster Sarah Sands, talking about her book The Interior Silence; Gareth Higgins speaking about his book How Not to be Afraid; and Brian McLaren, who spoke about his latest book, Faith After Doubt. Buy access to a recording of the event at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/buy-tickets/ The conversation features occasional strong language. Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, the Rt Revd Graham James, a former Bishop of Norwich, reflects on the faith of Prince Philip. Bishop James preached numerous times at Sandringham and was quizzed by the Duke of Edinburgh about the content of his sermons, as well as wider theological matters. “It was a questioning, searching faith,” Bishop James says. “There’s a sense in which his own restlessness, which was obvious throughout the whole of his life, was also applied to his religion. But that, I think, was why it meant a lot to him. He didn’t want a routine religion: he wanted one which challenged his mind as well as his spirit.” Bishop James writes about Prince Philip in this week’s Church Times, which also contains coverage of church leaders’ tributes, an obituary, and more. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Picture credit: Alamy

The regular podcast is on a break this week, so here is a chance to listen again, or for the first time, to an episode from our archive. It’s a talk by Brian McLaren called “Worship that destroys (and saves) the world”, which was recorded at the 2019 Church Times Festival of Preaching (Features, 20 September 2019). On Saturday 17 April, Brian McLaren will be speaking about his new book, Faith After Doubt (Hodder & Stoughton), at a Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature one-day online event. Buy tickets at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/buy-tickets/ Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Picture credit: Copyright David Hartley

On this week’s podcast, Vicky Walker talks to the actor Sir David Suchet, whose reading of the whole of St John’s Gospel will be broadcast online on Easter Day at 4 p.m. The reading was recorded in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey, and will be streamed at www.youtube.com/c/WestminsterAbbeyLondon/. “I want the listener to feel very comfortable. I want you to be sitting with me,” he says. “And as I look into the camera, I’ll be looking at you. And I’m just reading to you. I may be speaking to what may amount to millions, but my tone is intimate, warm, friendly, not to push you away, but draw you in and just share it.” Sir David also talks in the interview about his conversion to Christianity and his journey of faith since. In 2015, Sir David, best-known for playing Agatha Christie’s fictional detective Hercule Poirot, recorded the first full-length audio version of the Bible, for the NIV Audio Bible App by Hodder & Stoughton (News, 1 January 2016). In 2017, he read the whole of St Mark’s Gospel aloud in the pulpit of St Paul’s Cathedral, to more than 2000 people (News, 7 April 2017). The video has received 2.4 million views online. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, John Pritchard considers how the experience of pilgrimage can enrich our everyday lives once we return home. This talk was recorded at the latest Church Times Festival of Pilgrimage, which took place online on Monday. The experience of pilgrimage, he hopes, “will permeate the rest of our lived experience. . . The essence of religion is actually about the presence of God in the midst of everyday life. Not God in a box on the edge of our everyday lives, but God in the heart of it all, because that’s where discipleship is to be found — right at the heart of everything.” The Rt Revd John Pritchard is a former Bishop of Oxford and a popular writer of books such as The Life and Work of a Priest, Why go to Church?, and God Lost and Found. The full 2021 Festival of Pilgrimage event will be available to watch at https://pilgrimage.hymnsam.co.uk/ Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week’s podcast features talks from the final of the Theology Slam 2021, which took place online on Thursday evening. The first talk is by Imogen Ball, a final year ordinand and MA student at Trinity College Bristol, speaking on “Creativity in a time of pandemic”. She is followed by Joshua House, a recent theology graduate from the University of Leeds who is now a trainee RE teacher, and who speaks on “Community in a time of pandemic”. The final talk is by Flo O’Taylor, a Phd student at Durham University, on “Justice in a time of pandemic”. Theology Slam is a competition to find engaging young voices who think theologically about the contemporary world. Its organised jointly by the Church Times, SCM Press and the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. Read more about the final, and find out the winner, at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/ Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Canon Mark Oakley talks about the books that have helped him through the pandemic so far. “Literature is more a verb than a noun; a living conversation,” he says. “Opening up the covers is opening up the door to a hospitable place, asking me to come in and take a seat. Literature makes thing matter. Literature, like faith, is a celebration of the meaning of experience and of the experience of meaning.” This talks was originally given at a one-day online event organised last month by the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Buy access to a recording of the whole event here. Canon Mark Oakley is Dean of St John's College, Cambridge, and the author of The Splash of Words: Believing in poetry (Canterbury Press), which won the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize. Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Picture credit: KT Bruce

Announcing his Budget on Wednesday, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said that his measures would protect “the lowest-paid and most vulnerable”, who had been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. On the podcast this week, Ed Thornton talks to the director of Church Action for Tax Justice, Dr Justin Thacker, about whether the Budget lives up to Mr Sunak’s claims. Dr Thacker assesses whether the tax measures in the Budget will actually generate the revenue needed to help those who are struggling financially, and asks whether enough is being done to fund areas such as social care and education. Find out more about Church Action for Tax Justice at https://www.catj.org.uk/. Read our coverage of the Budget in this week's paper and on our website. Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week, Rachel Mann is in conversation with Francis Spufford about his eagerly-anticipated second novel, Light Perpetual (Faber and Faber). It’s available from the Church Times Bookshop for the discounted price of £15.29. The conversation was recorded last Saturday at a one-day online event organised by the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Francis also answered questions from viewers on subjects including doubt, heaven, and whether, as a writer, he sees God as a great explosion of words. If you missed the live event, you can buy access to a recording at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk In a review published in last week’s Church Times, Angela Tilby wrote: “It is a novel, a story of London, and a set of human stories. It is also a profound and teasing meditation on time and chance and the presence in our lives of an elusive reality greater than ourselves. It works as both a novel, and as a hymn at life that begins in disaster and ends in doxology. “The interwoven stories are of five south-London children, Jo, Valerie, Alec, Vernon, and Ben. They were among those who were pulverised in a V2 rocket attack in November 1944. But supposing time had played a trick and the bomb had not gone off, or had exploded harmlessly elsewhere?” Francis Spufford’s first novel, Golden Hill, won the Costa First Novel Award 2016. He has also written five highly praised works of non-fiction, including Unapologetic: Why, despite everything Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense, which was shortlisted for the 2016 Michael Ramsey Prize. Picture credit: Eamonn McCabe/Popperfoto Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Canon Mark Oakley talks to the director of St Mellitus College, the Revd Dr Hannah Steele, about her new book, Living His Story: Revealing the extraordinary love of God in ordinary ways (SPCK) (Books, 22 January). It is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent book 2021. The book seeks to provide a fresh perspective on evangelism, pursuing Walter Brueggemann’s description of evangelism as “an invitation and summons to ‘switch stories’ and therefore to change lives”. The interview was recorded during an online event earlier this month, which also featured two other authors talking about their Lent books: Sam Wells on A Cross in the Heart of God (Canterbury Press) and Stephen Cherry on Thy Will Be Done (Bloomsbury). All the books are available at the Church Times Bookshop. You can watch a video of the event at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/5-february/audio-video/video/lent-books-discussion-and-readings The Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature is hosting a one-day online event on Saturday 20 February, titled Light in Darkness. Speakers include Francis Spufford, talking about his new novel, Light Perpetual, which is reviewed in this week’s Church Times. The other speakers are Katherine Tiernan, Rachel Mann, Mark Oakley and Stephen Cherry. Find out more and book tickets at churchtimes.co.uk/events Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Canon Rachel Mann has written a Lent course on an unlikely topic: Still Standing: a Lent Course based on the Elton John movie Rocketman (DLT) (Books, 22 January). It’s available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for £6.29. Ed Thornton caught up with Rachel this week to find out more about the course. “Rocketman is not about Elton John’s conversion to Christianity — I don’t know quite what he thinks about Christianity,” Rachel says. “But what it is about is about a human being coming to terms with the depths of his need, with the way in which he’s lived a life of profound excess and damage and brokenness, and that need for healing. And gosh isn’t that a story all of us can perhaps wrestle with — our grit and our grace, our brokenness and our holiness.” Rachel will be talking about her debut novel, The Gospel of Eve (Books, 27 November 2020), at a one-day Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature event being held online on Saturday 20 February. Other speakers include Francis Spufford, whose eagerly anticipated second novel, Light Perpetual, has recently been published; Kathy Tiernan; and Mark Oakley. Book tickets at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/buy-tickets/ Canon Rachel Mann is Rector of St Nicholas’s, Burnage, and Visiting Fellow of Manchester Met University. Find out about forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Picture credit: KT BRUCE

On this week’s podcast, we bring you a talk given by the Revd Jarel Robinson-Brown, “Prophetic Rage: Fire shut in my bones.” The talk was given last Saturday at an online conference organised by SCM Press, “How to rage: Theology, activism and the Church.” We also publish an edited extract from the talk in this week’s Church Times. He says: “There is no such thing as a prophetic life which is content to be prophetic in language only. Prophetic living, if it is of God, moves us to ask not just what must be said, but, more crucially, what must be done.” This talk was recorded before the row about a tweet that he posted about the clap for Captain Sir Tom Moore, for which he has apologised. Tickets to watch back the livestream of the "How to Rage" conference are available at https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/events Jarel’s book, Black, Gay, British, Christian, Queer: Church and the famine of grace, is due to be published in July by SCM Press. It is available to pre-order from the Church Times Bookshop: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334060482/black-gay-british-christian-queer Find out about forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week’s podcast features a talk given by the Bishop of Worcester, Dr John Inge, at last week’s Church Times webinar on clergy well-being, “The Weight of This Calling: Clergy burnout, wellbeing, and resilience”. The talk is introduced by Church Times columnist Angela Tilby, who chaired the event. Bishop John was asked to speak on how bishops can help clergy to thrive. “I find the most helpful analogy is to think of myself as the director of a play,” he said. “My job is to try to bring the best out of the cast, so that their energy and God-given creativity and gifting can be released and the production go well. “My role now as a bishop is not to bombard the clergy with initiatives or ad clerums . . . but, pray God, to be an encouraging, non-anxious presence in their midst, discerning where God’s energy is and fanning that flame." He said later in the talk: “Whatever other people place upon us in terms of expectations, it seems to me that our most unrealistic expectations come from within, precisely because we don’t really love ourselves. We preach a gospel of grace and unconditional love, but we live as if we need to prove ourselves to God and others, and maybe the bishop, and maybe the Archbishop. “If we’re going to experience that fullness of life which Jesus yearns to give us, we need to learn to be at home in our own skin — for our own sake, but also for the sake of those to whom we minister.” Find out about forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Picture credit: KT Bruce

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Simon Parke about his new book Gospel: Rumours of love. A work of historical fiction, it is narrated in the first-person through the eyes of Jesus (Yeshua), Mary Magdalene (Miriam), and Mary, the mother of Jesus. “I was interested in going and having a look at some of the gaps,” Simon says. “What was it like for Jesus to leave home?. . . What was it like to wake up in a tomb after you’ve been crucified? There are big holes in the gospel narrative which I wanted to explore.” The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, says: “This is a poignant and mystical story of love which is likely to raise more questions than answers, but then that is not unlike the stories Jesus himself once told.” Simon is an author, speaker, and consultant, who wrote a regular column for the Church Times for 11 years. His recent books include an imagined life of Julian of Norwich, The Secret Testament of Julian (White Crow Books) (Books, 30 November 2018) and The Soldier, the Gaoler, the Spy, and her Lover (Marylebone House) (Books, 5 May 2017). Gospel: Rumours of love is available to pre-order from the Church Times Bookshop, and you can read an extract in the 22 January issue of the Church Times. Our colleagues at SCM Press are holding an online day conference on 30th January titled How to Rage: Theology, activism, and the Church. Speakers include Andrew Graystone, Hannah Malcolm, and Azariah France Williams, who have all been on this podcast before. Find out more and book tickets at scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/events. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Recent events in the United States show that Western-style liberal democracies may not be as robust as we like to think, the Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, writes in a comment article in this week’s Church Times (15 January). The arrest last week of pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong, and the attempt in 2019 by the British Prime Minister to prorogue Parliament, show that threats to democracy are not confined to the US. On this week’s podcast, Dr Smith talks about what needs to be done to support democratic government, and what part churches have to play. He also speaks about the campaign that he has led to reduce the harms caused by gambling. On Thursday 21 January, from 5-7pm, the Church Times is hosting a live webinar on clergy burnout, well-being, and resilience. Tickets are £10 or £5 for Church Times subscribers. For more information and to book tickets, visit www.churchtimes.co.uk/the-weight-of-this-calling Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Growing numbers of Christians say that they are “done with” attending church. What are their reasons for doing so, and what can churches learn from it? In Leaving Church: What can we learn from those who are done with church? (Grove Books), Robin Stockitt and S John Dawson tell the stories of those who have moved away from traditional forms of church, and consider what lessons the Church can draw. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Robin Stockitt about the book, which is available to buy at https://grovebooks.co.uk/products/p-162-leaving-church-what-can-we-learn-from-those-who-are-done-with-church An extract from the book is published in this week’s Church Times (8 January). The Revd Robin Stockitt has been ordained for 23 years and has worked in parishes in England, Germany, and Northern Ireland. On Thursday 21 January, from 5-7pm, the Church Times is hosting a live webinar on clergy burnout, well-being, and resilience. Tickets are £10 or £5 for Church Times subscribers. For more information and to book tickets, visit https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/the-weight-of-this-calling Picture credit: iStock Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week, we have one of the podcast highlights of 2020: an interview with Madeleine Davies about her book Lights for the Path: a guide through grief, pain, and loss (SPCK). It’s available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop. At the end of the interview, Malcolm Guite reads his sonnet “Pilgrimage”. Read an extract from the Lights for the Path on the Church Times website. In a review of the book on the Living Church website, the Revd Todd Fitzgerald writes that “the most valuable elements of Lights for the Path are the author’s robust theological analysis and extraordinary pastoral sensitivity. At a time when more people lack any belief structure or regular practices with which to navigate life’s ups and downs, Davies’s contribution to literature for teenagers navigating grief is sorely needed. “Without being preachy or dogmatic, Davies invites teens to situate their tragic experience, with all their questions and emotions and confusion, in the midst of the Christian story.”

On this week’s podcast, Malcolm Guite takes us on a journey through the “Great O Antiphons”: seven prayers which the Church prayed during the first centuries, which called afresh for Christ to come. Malcolm reads each of the seven prayers and reflects on them, and offers his own poetic response to each one, taken from his collection Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian year (Canterbury Press). Malcolm is posting daily Advent reflections and sonnets on his website: htt//malcolmguite.wordpress.com/tag/o-antiphons/ This talk was first broadcast on 28 November during an online Advent retreat, hosted by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. Malcolm’s latest collection of Poet’s Corner columns, A Heaven in Ordinary: A Poet’s Corner collection, is published by Canterbury Press and is available from the Church Times Bookshop. The Church Times Podcast will return in the new year. We wish all our listeners a very Happy Christmas. Picture credit: KT Bruce Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Piranesi, the long-awaited second novel by Susanna Clarke, has been published to critical acclaim. Last month, it was shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Book Awards. Clarke’s 2004 novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, has sold more than four million copies worldwide and been adapted into a BBC television series. After its publication, Clarke suffered from a debilitating illness which made it difficult for her to write. On this week’s podcast, Sarah Lothian interviews Susanna Clarke about how she came to write Piranesi and about how her faith has developed over the course of her illness. She says: “I remember someone once saying that Christianity was very simple. And I thought, ‘Well, it might have a simplicity, but it’s not a simplicity that, I think, is necessarily easily grasped by human beings.’ “I feel I’m struggling towards faith, a simpler, more childlike faith, but I’m trying to get rid of all the neuroses and the difficulties that have accumulated like barnacles, and scrape them off and get back to simplicity.” Piranesi is published by Bloomsbury at £14.99 in hardback (Church Times Bookshop £13.49). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Hannah Malcolm about a new book that she has edited, Words for a Dying World: Stories of grief and courage from the global Church. “I wanted to help people to think about the ways that grief over the world isn’t about death in abstraction. . . The ways that we grieve the world will be particular to the places we come from and the things we’ve experienced. "And we don’t come from the same places, so we have a great deal to learn from the grief of people who have different experiences to us and dialogue with those different experiences can make our understanding of this kind of grief richer.” You can read extracts from the book in this week’s Church Times. Hannah is an ordinand and PhD candidate at Cranmer Hall, Durham, and was the winner of the 2019 Theology Slam competition (News, Comment, 15 March 2019). Words for a Dying World is published on Monday (7 December) by SCM Press at £15.99 (Church Times Bookshop £12.99) Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Seven years after marrying a Christian, Stina Kielsmeier-Cook’s husband decided that he didn’t believe anymore. On this week’s podcast, Vicky Walker interviews Stina about what happened next, and how a group of nuns helped her to navigate her own beliefs. Stina recounts her experiences in a new book, Blessed Are The Nones (IVP, £11.99 (Church Times Bookshop £10.79)). Read an extract, and an edited summary of this interview, in this week’s Church Times. “In the book, I tell the story of one year of my life, of continuing to reckon with this grief and trying to understand,” Stina says. “So, now what? How do I live a Christian life when my husband isn’t a Christian any more? And so this term ‘spiritual singleness’ comes to me during a walk in the woods. . . It was a really helpful term for me, because it named the experience that I was going through when I was still happily married, still very much committed and in love with my husband, and yet there was this loneliness I was experiencing.” As she sought t make sense of her own faith in light of her husband’s deconversion, Stina “stumbled across” a group of Catholic sisters in her neighbourhood. “I wondered if there was something I shared with them because they had committed to this singleness,” she says. But she discovered: “They don’t consider themselves spiritually single in the way that I considered myself spiritually single, and that points to this discovery: that none of us can live a Christian faith on our own; there is a body of Christ to which we all belong.” Picture credit: Katzie & Ben Photography Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, Canon Mark Oakley speaks about how to preach when you haven’t got anything to say. This talk was given at the 2020 Church Times Festival of Preaching, which took place virtually in late September (News, 9 October). “A good sermon is not ultimately about information, but formation. It’s not a river of argument we have to follow to get to the end. It should be a fountain from which people can draw. And that means it can be unsystematic, creative, poetic, as open-ended as the parable preaching of Jesus. “St Ambrose taught that it did not suit God to save his people through logic. We might just be seeking the words as springboards to something better. They’re not to be perfect in themselves, and, if they’re not coming easily, they may be stalling as something a bit more truthful is trying to be born.” Canon Oakley is Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge. His books include The Splash of Words: Believing in poetry (Canterbury Press), which won the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize (News, 30 August 2019). Read an edited transcript of Professor Anna Carter Florence’s Festival of Preaching talk on Ezekiel in this week’s Church Times. Picture credit: David Hartley/Church Times Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On this week’s podcast, the editor of the Church Times, Paul Handley, talks to the Bishop of Coventry, Dr Christopher Cocksworth, about the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) project, which he chaired. The LLF project was set up in 2017 by the House of Bishops in an attempt to break the deadlock over same-sex relationships. The committee behind the project has published what it calls “a suite of resources”, which includes videos, podcasts, an online learning hub for further reading, and a five-week course, which is being commended for study by parishes — for example, during Lent. Central to all these is a 480-page book, Living in Love and Faith: Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage, which contains a distillation of the project’s findings Bishop Cocksworth says: “One of the keys to the project is that we’re not just looking at single issues. We’re trying to look at the whole framework of relationships.” Read more about the LLF project in this week's paper and on our website: www.churchtimes.co.uk/topics/living-in-love-and-faith Living in Love and Faith is produced by Church House Publishing at £19.99; Church Times Bookshop, £17.99. The online resources can be found at churchofengland.org/LLF. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

During the first lockdown, with public worship suspended, parish churches needed to make use of digital technology to broadcast services. Help has been provided by the digital team at Church House, led by the C of E’s head of digital communications Adrian Harris. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Adrian and his colleague Amaris Cole, senior digital communications manager, about how churches have embraced digital technology during the pandemic, and what the challenges are in the second lockdown. They also talk about the C of E’s Advent and Christmas campaign, Comfort and Joy, which seeks to provide consolation and hope at this difficult time (News, 9 October) The official Comfort and Joy booklet of reflections can be purchased at www.chpublishing.co.uk/comfortandjoy Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Churches have been supporting the footballer Marcus Rashford’s call to tackle half-term hunger this week, after MPs voted against a Labour motion to extend free school-meal vouchers to the school holidays. The Revd Lizzi Green, Assistant Curate of Gossops Green and Bewbush, in the diocese of Chichester, has personal experience of food insecurity. She writes in this week’s Church Times: “I am all too aware of the effects of childhood poverty. Both my parents worked, but had to stop, owing to disability. “I was in junior school the first time that my family was threatened with eviction. I was convinced that it meant that we would be living on the streets, and ran around our flat making sure that I’d packed extra teddies and jumpers in my school bag for me and my siblings. I didn’t eat breakfast for most of secondary school. At first, I convinced myself that eating that early made me feel ill. Later, because I wasn’t used to it, that became reality. “Years later, this is still the reality for children across the country.” On this week’s podcast, Lizzi talks about her experience, and the food poverty she has witnessed among children in her parish. And explains why she thinks the Government should change its mind about free-school meals during the school holidays. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Everybody Now is a podcast about what it means to be human on the threshold of a global climate emergency, in a time of systemic injustice and runaway pandemics. Scientists, activists, farmers, poets, and theologians talk bravely and frankly about how our biosphere is changing, about grief and hope in an age of social collapse and mass extinction, and about taking action against all the odds. On 19 October 2020, Everybody Now is being released by podcasters all over the world as a collective call for awareness, grief, and loving action. With contributions from: Dr Gail Bradbrook, scientist and co-founder of Extinction Rebellion Professor Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester Dámaris Albuquerque, works with agricultural communities in Nicaragua The Rt Revd Dr Rowan Williams, theologian and poet, and a former Archbishop of Canterbury Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet, theologian, and conflict mediator Rachel Mander, environmental activist with Hope for the Future John Swales, priest and activist, and part of a community for marginalised people Zena Kazeme, Persian-Iraqi poet who draws on her experiences as a former refugee to create poetry that explores themes of exile, home, war, and heritage Flo Brady, singer and theatre maker Hannah Malcolm, Anglican ordinand, climate writer, and organiser Alastair McIntosh, writer, academic, and land rights activist David Benjamin Blower, musician, poet, and podcaster Funding and Production: This podcast was crowdfunded by a handful of good souls, and produced by Tim Nash and David Benjamin Blower (www.nomadpodcast.co.uk). Permissions: The song Happily by Flo Brady is used with permission. The song The Soil, from We Really Existed and We Really Did This by David Benjamin Blower, used with permission. The Poem The Tree of Knowledge by Pádraig Ó Tuama used with permission. The Poem Atlas by Zena Kazeme used with permission. The Poem What is Man? by Rowan Williams from the book The Other Mountain, used with permission from Carcanet Press. The Church Times Podcast will return next week (30 October). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

This week, Ed Thornton talks to the historian and author Tom Holland about a new collection of essays he has edited, Revolutionary: Who was Jesus? Why does he still matter? (SPCK). “If you regard Jesus as just an enlightened teacher, then, ultimately, he’s no different to philosophers, teachers from other periods of history. . . But if what the gospels, the New Testament, the Church teaches is true, then the strangeness is so strange that it must surely animate everything that Christians say about the figure of Jesus.” The book available from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £15.99. It features contributions from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and non-religious writers. They include Rowan Williams, Terry Eagleton, Amy-Jill Levine, Tarif Khalidi, and Julian Baggini. An extract from the book is published in this week’s Church Times. Tom was interviewed on the podcast last year about his book Dominion: The making of the Western Mind (Little, Brown), which is now out in paperback. The interview was also published in the Church Times. His previous books include Rubicon: The triumph and tragedy of the Roman Republic and Dynasty: The rise and fall of the house of Caesar, both also published by Little, Brown. Picture credit: Charlie Hopkinson Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Anglican ordinands studying in the UK, Ireland or the Diocese in Europe are eligible for a free Church Times subscription. Apply online at www.churchtimes.co.uk/ordinands

This week’s podcast features a talk by the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, the Very Revd Professor Martyn Percy, given at the Church Times Festival of Preaching, which took place virtually last week. His talk is titled “The Verb of God made flesh — Jesus, love, and learning in a post-Covid Church.” “Instead of constantly trying to present a Church triumphant, what about a Church that is receptive, learning, and humble? Not a Church anymore of monologue, but a Church of dialogue. Instead of a Church stuck in the broadcast mode, what about a Church that actually is in reception mode? Humble enough and self-aware enough to know that it does not have all the answers, and can truly listen and learn.” Read more about this year’s Festival of Preaching on our website. For anyone who missed the live event, tickets can be purchased to watch recordings of all the talks: £10 for subscribers to the Church Times, £25 for non-subscribers: https://festivalofpreaching.hymnsam.co.uk/2020-virtual-festival/ The Church Times, in association with the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM), will be holding a webinar on Monday 19 October on how hymns and liturgy have been effected by the pandemic. Tickets are £10, or £5 for Church Times subscribers and RSCM members. For more information and to book tickets, go to https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/hymns-and-worship Podcast edited by Serena Long. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Anglican ordinands studying in the UK, Ireland or the Diocese in Europe are eligible for a free Church Times subscription. Apply online at www.churchtimes.co.uk/ordinands

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to the theologian and poet Bishop Graham Kings about his recently released collection of poems, Nourishing Connections (Canterbury Press). They are joined by Silvia Dimitrova, who has worked with Bishop Graham on his Nourishing Connections project (www.grahamkings.org) over the past 17 years and produced seven accompanying paintings of Women in the Bible, and Tristan Latchford, who is composing seven anthems on the paintings and poems. “When you have the vision and the words and the tune, all your senses are involved and it’s just incredible.” Nourishing Connections is available from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £8.79. Click the play button above to listen to this podcast. You can also listen to the Church Times Podcast on the Church Times app for iPhone and iPad, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, and most other podcast platforms. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Anglican ordinands studying in the UK, Ireland or the Diocese in Europe are eligible for a free Church Times subscription. Apply online at www.churchtimes.co.uk/ordinands

On the podcast this week, the Revd A. D. A France-Williams reads from his book Ghost Ship: Institutional racism and the Church of England (SCM Press). “To love oneself as a black person in the UK is an act of resistance to the pressures and powers that are actively bearing down to disassemble whatever sense of identity one can muster.” Ghost Ship was reviewed in the Church Times by the Revd Arlington W. Trotman, who called it “unbelievably courageous and timely”. Read an interview with A. D. A. France-Williams and an extract from the book on our website. Ghost Ship is available from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £15.99. Audio produced by Damien Mahoney of Caulbearers. Podcast edited by Serena Long. Picture credit: Tim Cole Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Anglican ordinands studying in the UK, Ireland or the Diocese in Europe are eligible for a free Church Times subscription. Apply online at www.churchtimes.co.uk/ordinands Join us on Tuesday 29th September for a virtual Festival of Preaching. Speakers include Mark Oakley, Rachel Mann and Malcolm Guite. Go to festivalofpreaching.hymnsam.co.uk

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to author and Church Times columnist Paul Vallely about his new book, Philanthropy: From Aristotle to Zuckerberg (Bloomsbury). The book was reviewed in last week’s Church Times by Alan Billings, who writes: “‘Philanthropy’”, as used by Paul Vallely, is elastic enough to range from the widow’s mite to Bill Gates’s billions, from a religious duty to a voluntary offering, from one-to-one almsgiving to the charitable foundation, with mixed motives at every point. It also ranges across time — from Aristotle to Mark Zuckerberg. It is a very big book.” Philanthropy is available from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £25. Read an extract in this week’s Church Times (18 September). Podcast edited by Serena Long. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Anglican ordinands studying in the UK, Ireland or the Diocese in Europe are eligible for a free Church Times subscription. Apply online at www.churchtimes.co.uk/ordinands Join us on Tuesday 29th September for a virtual Festival of Preaching. Speakers include Mark Oakley, Rachel Mann and Malcolm Guite. Go to festivalofpreaching.hymnsam.co.uk

On the podcast this week, rapper and playwright Testament interviews Leroy Logan, former superintendent in the Metropolitan police and co-founder of the National Black Police Association. They discuss Logan’s forthcoming book, Closing Ranks: My Life as a Cop – including his early experiences as a black police officer and his founding of the NBPA — as well as his faith, family, and what he hopes the Black Lives Matter movement will achieve. “I knew I was going into certain corridors of power and He had to be with me . . . and if I went into any situation operationally or strategically. . . I wasn’t on my own, I’ve got the heavenly host behind me. . . I’ve got the Holy Spirit. . . But I had to be totally adherent to what the Lord was telling me to do and how to do it” Logan’s story is being adapted by Steve McQueen as part of the BBC’s Small Axe series, starring John Boyega and due to be released later this month. You can read an edited transcript of the interview in this week’s Church Times (11 September).a Podcast edited by Serena Long. Closing Ranks: My Life as a Cop will be published by SPCK on 17 September at £14.99 (Church Times Bookshop £13.50) Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Anglican ordinands studying in the UK, Ireland or the Diocese in Europe are eligible for a free Church Times subscription. Apply online at www.churchtimes.co.uk/ordinands Join us on Tuesday 29th September for a virtual Festival of Preaching. Speakers include Mark Oakley, Rachel Mann and Malcolm Guite. Go to festivalofpreaching.hymnsam.co.uk

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Joe Walsh, founder of Faith in Operation, an initiative which invites Christians to consider giving a kidney to a stranger. They discuss the prospect of this “altruistic kidney donation” ending the transplantation waiting list, as well as Joe’s own experience of kidney donation and the effect of the coronavirus on those awaiting transplants. “After giving my kidney, I started to wonder why there was never any concerted Christian effort to promote altruistic kidney donation, because they just seem to fit so neatly together.” Find out more about Faith in Operation at www.faithinoperation.co.uk Joe has written a piece for the Church Times this week to coincide with Organ Donation Week. Podcast edited by Serena Long. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Anglican ordinands studying in the UK, Ireland or the Diocese in Europe are eligible for a free Church Times subscription. Apply online at www.churchtimes.co.uk/ordinands Join us on Tuesday 29th September for a virtual Festival of Preaching. Speakers include Mark Oakley, Rachel Mann and Malcolm Guite. Go to https://festivalofpreaching.hymnsam.co.uk

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to journalist, broadcaster, and campaigner Andrew Graystone about his new book, Faith, Hope and Mischief: Tiny acts of rebellion by an everyday activist (Canterbury Press). Andrew is the person who, after the mass shooting in a mosque in Christchurch, stood outside his local mosque in Manchester with a cardboard sign saying, “You are my friends. I'll watch while you pray.” A steadfast believer in the power of tiny acts to change the world, his book describes this and other stories of "everyday activism". “Everyday activism is about little acts of resistance. It’s about lighting candles in dark rooms, encouraging people who have lost hope, touching people who feel that they’re untouchable.” Faith, Hope and Mischief is now available from Church House Bookshop. Podcast edited by Serena Long. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader. Anglican ordinands studying in the UK, Ireland or the Diocese in Europe are eligible for a free Church Times subscription. Apply online at www.churchtimes.co.uk/ordinands

The Mirror and the Light, the conclusion to Dame Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, was published in March, and has since been nominated for both the Booker Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. It was reviewed by Alec Ryrie in the Church Times here. On this week’s podcast — taken from our archive — Dame Hilary and Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch reflect on the life of Thomas Cromwell and his place in the Reformation. They were speaking in July 2019 at an event to mark the 900th anniversary of Launde Abbey, which Cromwell was fond of visiting. In part one, we hear presentations from each of them about how, as a novelist and historian respectively, they approached the Putney boy who became Henry VIII’s chief minister. You can listen to the second half of their discussion here, and an edited record of the full conversation is available here. Both The Mirror and the Light and Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Thomas Cromwell: A life can be purchased from the Church House Bookshop website. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

This week, we’ve visited the archive for an interview between Andrew Brown and bestselling historian Tom Holland, whose book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind is now out in paperback. “This isn’t a history of Christianity,” Holland says. “It’s a history of what’s been revolutionary and transformative about Christianity: about how Christianity has transformed not just the West, but the entire world. “People in the West, even those who may imagine that they have emancipated themselves from Christian belief, in fact, are shot through with Christian assumptions about almost everything.” Dominion is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

On the podcast this week, Vicky Walker talks to author and theologian Tara Isabella Burton about her new book, Strange Rites: New religions for a godless world. They discuss the breakdown of public trust in major religious (and other) institutions, the subsequent rise of wellness culture in the US and beyond, and the part that technology plays in the formation of identity, community, and spiritual beliefs. “What we’re seeing is not a kind of secularisation of America between the religious and the not-religious, but a reimagining of religion as this kind of more individualised, more intuitional religion of the self, where people want to mix and match and play around with different traditions, different belief systems, different practices.” You can read the an edited transcript of the interview and an edited extract from the book in this week’s Church Times (7 August). Strange Rites: New religions for a godless world is published by Public Affairs Books at £20 (Church Times Bookshop £18, from September). Picture credit: Rose Callahan Podcast edited by Serena Long. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

This week’s podcast guest is Karen Gibson, the founder and director of the Kingdom Choir. She wrote for the Church Times last week about how her mother, a member of the Windrush generation, was asked not to return to a C of E church 50 years ago, but recently received an impassioned apology from its new vicar. Karen talks to Ed Thornton about her mother’s reaction to the apology and the conversations that still need to happen within the Church to combat racism, as well as how the members of her choir have leaned on each other during lockdown. “We are wired for connection and community. We are wired to reach out and touch somebody. To hold, to hug; that is what we are wired for.” Podcast edited by Serena Long Picture credit: PA Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

This week, we bring a talk given by Malcolm Guite at the sixth Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, in Oxfordshire, in February. Drawing on some of his own sonnets from his collection, Parable and Paradox (Canterbury Press, 2016), and on the work of Donne and Herbert, Malcolm explores the two great commandments, and, more widely, the call and response of love in the Christian life. His most recent poetry collection is After Prayer (Canterbury Press). Watch Malcolm’s other talk at the festival, with Roger Wagner, here. Malcolm Guite is well-known to Church Times readers for his weekly Poet’s Corner column. The second collection of columns, Heaven in Ordinary, will published on 20 September by Canterbury Press. Podcast edited by Serena Long. Picture credit: KT Bruce Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Ysenda Maxtone Graham about her new book, British Summer Time Begins: The school summer holidays 1930-1980 (Little, Brown) (Church Times Bookshop £17.10). Ysenda has written a piece on holidays and churchgoing for this week’s Church Times. They discuss Christian house-swaps and clergy holidays, as well as how much the school summer holiday experience has changed. “A typical day out meant going somewhere in the fresh air that didn’t charge for entry. . . I like to think that in this coronavirus time we’ve sort of relearned that — the joy of non-materialism.” British Summer Time Begins is reviewed here by the Ven. Dr Lyle Dennen. “This book would be an interesting read during any summer, to see how the British had been, how children were treated, what people’s values and lifestyles were, the relationship between the sexes, how the class structure functioned, and what people’s hopes and fears were. Read in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, it has a gripping, questioning, and slightly surreal quality.” Podcast edited by Serena Long. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

The Coronavirus, Church & You survey was set up to assess experiences of and responses to the Covid-19 pandemic among churchgoers in the UK. In this week’s podcast, Church Times editor Paul Handley discusses the results of the survey with its creators, the Revd Andrew Village, Professor of Practical and Empirical Theology, and Canon Leslie J. Francis, Visiting Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, both at York St John University. They consider levels of stress and spiritual well-being during lockdown, the highs and lows of online worship, and give insights from clergy and lay people, Evangelicals, and Anglo-Catholics. “Clergy are interesting. . . If you look at lay people, they were less stressed, but they were less happy. Clergy reported better spiritual wellbeing, but more stress.” You can still take part in the survey: https://yorksj.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cAYhUS8YSvn0ir3 Podcast edited by Serena Long Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

On the podcast this week, Canon Jessica Martin reads an extract from her much-anticipated new book, Holiness and Desire: What makes us who we are? The extract is published in this week’s Church Times (3 July). “Trusting the scriptures is not wilful blindness, but a speaking act of love. Because of love, I believe that the power of a medieval anonymous lyric to move me to tears signals an authentic rather than an historically naïf response. Because of love, I believe that a paradisal early memory of playing with my brother on a carpet of cherry blossom is a present earnest of the joys of heaven, not a corrupted image of a lost event. The fount of all these is the same as the belief which turns me towards my spouse trustfully rather than in suspicion. “As with my spouse, I pursue my relationship with scripture assuming that the process of becoming which led to this communicative moment will, in the end, fulfil and not betray my trust — not because it is a history of perfection (that’s true neither of writing nor of people), but because love underpins the conversation; love makes it possible.” The Revd Dr Jessica Martin is a Canon Residentiary of Ely Cathedral. Holiness and Desire: What makes us who we are? is published by Canterbury Press at £16.99 (Church Times Bookshop £15.30). Picture credit: ©David Hartley/Church Times Podcast edited by Serena Long Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

The final of Theology Slam 2020, a competition to find engaging young voices who think theologically about the contemporary world, took place online on Tuesday 23 June. On this week’s podcast, you can hear the talks of the three finalists, who spoke on Theology and Disability, Theology and #MeToo, and Theology and Race. “‘Where are you?’ is the cry of the human spirit to God. It’s written on the placards of protestors; it’s whispered by the survivor of sexual abuse.” The winner was Augustine Tanner-Ihm, who spoke about the Church’s responsibility to work towards a “radical new Christian inclusion”, his own experience of racism within the Church, and the importance of belonging. Augustine was previously interviewed on the podcast. “Accessibility is being able to get into the building. Diversity is getting invited to the table. Inclusion is having a voice at the table. But belonging is having your voice heard at the table.” Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

This week’s podcast guest is Chine McDonald, a writer, broadcaster, and Head of Community Fundraising and Public Engagement at Christian Aid. Chine has written the Lift Up Your Hearts article for this week’s Church Times, and talks to Ed Thornton about how books, art, and music — as well as her faith — have sustained her during lockdown. “The Christ that I believe in is a Christ who . . . suffers with us, and part of the incarnation is the fact that God is right there with us in the horribleness, in the gruesomeness of life.” They also discuss the Black Lives Matter movement and the programme that Chine recently presented on BBC Radio 4, No Justice, No Peace: Religion and protest (reviewed in our Radio column this week). Here, they cover the Black experience both within and outside the Church; whether the Bible can be used to combat racism; and the Church’s own history, in the UK and the US, which has been at the forefront of both the civil-rights movement and some of the most racist groups in society. Podcast edited by Serena Long. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Augustine Tanner-Ihm about racism in the Church of England and beyond. “I really wanted to share God’s love, transform this society with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and do it in whatever context God calls me to.” Augustine, who recently completed his ordinand training at Cranmer Hall, Durham and has since been applying for curacies, received an email reply from one parish rejecting him “firstly” on the grounds that “the demographic of the parish is monochrome white working class, where you might feel uncomfortable”. Augustine has lived, trained, and worked almost exclusively in white working-class communities — “If anyone is looking for ordination in the Church of England and they are BAME, then you understand that you are probably going to be in an all-white parish, because the majority of the country is white” — and was disappointed that there was no attempt to enter into a conversation about how he might feel as a black man working in a white-majority parish, before his decision was made for him. They go on to discuss the current spotlight on the Black Lives Matter movement and what needs to be done to address structural injustice in the Church. Augustine is one of three finalists in Theology Slam 2020, which takes place online on 23rd June. His talk will be about Theology and Race. Find out more here: https://www.licc.org.uk/events/theology-slam-live-final/ Podcast edited by Serena Long. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

“All that we’ve ever done is about getting young people out of their rooms and into the community and working alongside us, and through lockdown we’ve been doing the opposite of that. . . So that has been very difficult.” On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Gareth Sorsby, joint CEO of YMCA Exeter, about the impact of the coronavirus on an organisation whose work is grounded in face-to-face social contact and community integration. Eighty-seven per cent of young people at YMCA Exeter have reported that they struggle with self-harm, depression, and anxiety, all of which have risen as a result of the current crisis; Gareth explains how they have adapted their services to cope. From video conferencing youth groups, to virtual coffee shops, daily art competitions and group gaming sessions, the team at YMCA Exeter are doing everything that they can to ensure that the most vulnerable in society can live anxiety-free. “I have been really pleased with the resilience of young people: how they do get on with it, how they do figure out ways to cope,” Gareth says. “And they do reach out for support where they can get it, as well.” Find out more about YMCA Exeter’s work at https://www.ymcaexeter.org.uk. A Covid-19 resources page is at https://www.ymcaexeter.org.uk/covid-19-information. Podcast edited by Serena Long. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

On the podcast this week, Church Times columnists Paul Vallely and Angela Tilby discuss the big story of the week: Dominic Cummings’s trip from London to County Durham during the lockdown. They talk about (and disagree on) whether the public outrage has been fair, and consider the reactions of the bishops. Writing in this week’s Church Times, Paul Vallely says: “Mr Cummings, with his legal loopholes and rule-rewriting, desecrated the dignity of ordinary people’s sacrifices. That’s what he appears, for all his cleverness, to lack the empathy to understand.” Angela Tilby is more sympathetic to Mr Cummings’s predicament, and warns against the danger of scapegoating individuals during a time of national crisis. This podcast is presented by Ed Thornton and edited by Serena Long. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

This week, Ed Thornton talks to Madeleine Davies about her new book, Lights for the Path: A guide through grief, pain and loss, published today (21 May) by SPCK. It’s available to order from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price £8, and an extract is published in this week’s Church Times. “Lights for the Path is part memoir and part theological reflection on the theme of death,” the Head of Theology at Youthscape, Dr Phoebe Hill, says. “Skilfully woven together and littered with literary references, Davies offers a gracious acknowledgement and comfort for the whole range of emotions a young person experiencing a death will encounter. “Sharing her own story of losing her mum as a teenager, and the stories of others, this book is a window into the deeper questions of life: what happens when we die? Why would God allow this? Davies gives no trite answers; this honest account exposes the simplistic answers for what they are, and creates a safe space to air your true thoughts, your true feelings and your true questions for God.” The Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, the Revd Dr Sam Wells, says: “If it can’t be happy, make it beautiful. Madeleine Davies offers us this exquisite gift, born from her own grief, her compassionate heart, and her listening soul. “With elegant simplicity she attends to the fear, fury and fragility of loss, bringing forth wisdom, gentleness and insight in equal measure. Above all she gives us humility and patience, as she lets people tell their own stories and leaves unresolved what no comfort can easily heal. Anyone who faces the agony of loss could wish for no finer companion.” Madeleine Davies is the features editor and deputy news editor of the Church Times. This is her first book. (Church Times Bookshop special price £8; CH Bookshop: 0845 017 6965). At the end of the interview, Malcolm Guite reads his sonnet “Pilgrimage”. Podcast edited by Serena Long. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

This week, Ed Thornton talks to the Rt Revd David Wilbourne about his biography of John Habgood, a former Archbishop of York, who died last year, aged 91. The book is called Just John: The authorized biography of John Habgood, Archbishop of York, 1983-1995 (SPCK), and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £16. In an obituary published in the Church Times, Rupert Shortt describes Habgood as “the outstanding British Anglican leader of his generation, and perhaps the country’s most distinguished churchman tout court”. He has been described by several people as “the best Archbishop of Canterbury we never had”. In a review of Just John published in the Church Times, Richard Harries writes: “David Wilbourne, who was Habgood’s chaplain for four years, and whose writing is well known to readers of the Church Times, has written an informative and attractive life of his former boss, which will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand this turbulent period better. . . “Wilbourne follows Habgood’s career as a theological teacher, ecumenist, writer, and church leader, underlining his key part, for example, in liturgical revision, and especially on the ordination of women. . . “Wilbourne has given us a warm picture of an estimable human being and a deeply serious Christian.” Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

On the podcast this week, Ed Thornton talks to the Revd Steve Morris about the important part played by Forces chaplains in the Second World War, and today. They include Captain Leslie Skinner, who Mr Morris writes about in this week’s Church Times, which marks the 75th anniversary of VE Day. “Skinner spent his time conducting funerals, digging graves, and praying with the dying and wounded,” he writes. “At one point, he went alone into a “cooked” tank full of burned human remains so that the men didn’t have to do it. He wanted to protect them from some of the horror.” Mr Morris is the Vicar of St Cuthbert’s, North Wembley, in the diocese of London. At the end of the podcast, the deputy editor of the Church Times, Glyn Paflin, reads from the Leader published in the paper on 11 May 1945, entitled “Thanks be to God”. It is also published in this week’s paper and on the website. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

On this week’s podcast, Emma Major, a licensed lay pioneer minister at St Nicolas’s, Earley, in Oxford diocese, offers advice on how the Church can better include disabled people. She reads from an article that she wrote, which is published on our website: Isolation and the Church: online and offline. She says: “Of course, in a few weeks’ time, the first phase of lockdown may be eased and most church buildings open up again. I wonder what will happen, if so. Will online church provisions stop? How will this affect those who have to continue shielding themselves? Will churches stream the services from their buildings? How will those at home be included in worship and leadership and encouraged in their calling? “Will churches realise the importance of including everyone who has been excluded from physical churches until now? How will that look? Perhaps hearing my experience will help you to understand what I mean.”

This week, Hannah Bacon talks about the research behind her book Feminist Theology and Contemporary Dieting Culture: Sin, salvation and women’s weight loss narratives (Bloomsbury). In a review of the book published in the Church Times, Jennie Hogan writes: “Susie Orbach’s 1978 seminal book Fat is a Feminist Issue broke taboos about women’s fleshy bodies. In Hannah Bacon’s engaging analysis of notions of fat in relation to Christianity, she argues forcefully and gracefully that fat is also a theological issue. Indeed, we are invited to experience the “faithing” of fat in her book, which is at once accessible and academic in its sustained personal and theological engagement.” Dr Bacon is Associate Professor in Feminist Theology and Acting Head of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Chester, UK. The talk was recorded at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, at Bloxham School, in Oxfordshire, in February. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Canon Rachel Mann about what has inspired and comforted her during the past month of self-isolation: art, literature, film, music, poetry, and prayer. At the end, she reads two poems from her most recent collection, A Kingdom of Love (Carcanet Press). Read Rachel’s reflections in the latest Lift Up Your Hearts, and watch her talk at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature here Canon Rachel Mann is Rector of St Nicholas’s, Burnage, and Visiting Fellow of Manchester Met University. Her most recent book is In the Bleak Midwinter: Advent and Christmas with Christina Rossetti, which she spoke on this podcast about last year. The interview is also available as a video. Picture credit: KT Bruce Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

Foodbanks in the UK are experiencing unprecedented demand as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton speaks to Robin Ferris, the CEO and Founder of Bankuet, an online foodbank donation service. Bankuet enables people to donate to foodbanks without leaving their home, and to buy the items that foodbanks most need. Find out more at bankuet.co.uk Before founding Bankuet, Robin worked in the entertainment industry with companies including Universal Pictures, Island Records and BBC Worldwide. He lives in Hackney and is a part of Kings Cross Church. At the end of this week’s episode, we hear a sonnet from our Poet’s Corner columnist, Malcolm Guite: "For the Unseen, a Sonnet for Carers." Malcolm wrote the sonnet five years ago for a service at Ely Cathedral celebrating the work of carers. He wrote on his blog this week: “Now in the midst of a pandemic, I send it out again, thinking this time of the myriad care workers, the NHS frontline staff, the neighbours leaving food at doorsteps, the partners and families of those in self-isolation, all who are tending, even from a distance and over a screen to the needs of their loved ones. "This goes out especially to ‘The patient partners lifting up a cross/to bear the burden their beloved bears’.” Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

Charities have launched emergency appeals for donations to help the most vulnerable, at home and abroad, during the coronavirus crisis. Much of the third sector have seen a significant drop in funds, just at the time when the people they help need them most. The Children’s Society has launched an appeal to raise funds to protect the vulnerable children and young people it works with. You can donate to it at www.childrenssociety.org.uk/lifeline. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton speaks to the Children’s Society’s chief executive, Mark Russell, about the appeal and about how the charity has radically changed how it works so that it can continue to support vulnerable children and young people. Also on this week’s podcast, Ed speaks to Church Times news reporter Maddy Fry about the difficulties facing Christian actors and musicians, many of whom currently have no work. She tells him about the work that chaplains in the creative industries are doing to support people in the theatre and music communities. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

Cole Moreton is a writer and broadcaster (and a former reporter and news editor of the Church Times). He has been named Interviewer of the Year for his work with the Mail on Sunday and his Radio 4 series The Boy Who Gave His Heart Away won Audio Moment of the Year, (a book of the same name was published in 2017. He lives near Beachy Head, the setting for his critically acclaimed debut novel The Light Keeper. In a review of the book published in the Church Times, Mark Oakley wrote: “Its themes are piercingly unapologetic — childlessness, grief, suicide, loss, the fragility of relationships, and bereavement’s erratic leadership of our emotions and, often, of life itself. Carefully paced but intense, detached but compelling, the movement of the novel is as enticing and treacherous as the sea and the coastland cliffs it beautifully evokes.” At the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature last month, Cole Moreton spoke to Angela Tilby about the themes of the book and read passages from it. You can listen to the fascinating conversation on this week’s podcast. The Light Keeper is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop. It is out in paperback in May. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

At last month’s Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, Mark Oakley gave a talk titled “Music on the Wind”: The love poetry of George Herbert and RS Thomas. Canon Oakley is the Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge, and the Canon Theologian of Wakefield Cathedral. His book The Splash of Words: Believing in Poetry (Canterbury Press) won the Michael Ramsey Prize in 2019. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

For two decades, the writer Rhidian Brook has been a contributor to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day: the “God-slot” on the Today programme that is loved by some and criticised others. An extract of his new book, Godbothering: Thoughts, 2000-2020 (SPCK), is published in this week’s Church Times. At the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature last month, he spoke to Bishop John Pritchard about what it’s like being a Thought for the Day contributor: how he comes up with ideas, how to avoid being platitudinous, and what the presenters make of it, among other things. “You want to make people think and sit up, but you don’t want to harangue people either,” he said. “I try and think of my more cantankerous atheistic or agnostic friends, who may be driving to work or shaving or whatever it is, and think ‘Ok, how do I hold their attention?” Listen to the conversation on this week’s podcast. Rhidian Brook’s novels include The Aftermath and The Killing of Butterfly Joe. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Paul Edmondson, Head of Research at The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, considers some of the different kinds of love which can be found across the Shakespearean canon. The talk is complemented by readings from Finbar Lynch and Catherine Cusack. It was recorded at the 2020 Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which took place at Bloxham School, Oxfordshire, on 21 and 22 February. Read more about the festival in this week’s Church Times. Picture: Paul Edmondson (centre) with Finbar Linch and Catherine Cusack. Credit: KT Bruce If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The former International Development Secretary Rory Stewart spoke at an event at St James’s Piccadilly, in London, on Monday, organised by Christian Aid. Mr Stewart, who is standing as an independent candidate to be mayor of London, was in conversation with the journalist Edward Stourton. Mr Stewart was asked about the Government’s record on international aid and Britain’s place in the world, among other things. Listen to an edited recording of the event on this week’s podcast. Picture credit: Elizabeth Dalziel/Christian Aid If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This week, Ed Thornton catches up with Madeleine Davies and Adam Becket, who have just returned from the press gallery at the General Synod, which has been meeting in Church House, Westminster. They tell us what some of the stand-out debates have been, including the surprise commitment to setting a 2030 target for net zero carbon emissions; repentance for the racism expressed to the Windrush generation; and the latest on the Living in Love and Faith project. Picture: The Revd Andrew Moughtin-Mumby (Southwark) speaks on his private member’s motion which called for the Synod to “lament, on behalf of Christ’s Church, the conscious and unconscious racism experienced by countless BAME Anglicans in 1948 and subsequent years” Credit: Geoff Crawford/Church Times Listeners might be interested to hear about the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which takes place at Bloxham School, Oxfordshire, on Friday 21 February and Saturday 22 February. For a full programme and to buy tickets, visit bloxhamfaithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This week, Ed Thornton talks to Paul Handley, who this month marks 25 years as editor of the Church Times. His first issue as editor was published on 10 February 1995. He reflects on how the Church and the newspaper has changed since then. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

This week, Madeleine Davies talks through the pastoral statement on civil partnerships by the House of Bishops, and the strong criticism that it provoked — including among the Bishops. Read the latest on this story at www.churchtimes.co.uk

This week, Ed Thornton talks to the Revd Alexander Faludy about George Orwell’s relationship with Christianity. Orwell died 70 years ago, on 21 January 1950, an avowed atheist. Faludy writes in this week’s Church Times, however, that Orwell had a complex relationship with faith intellectually and with Anglicanism institutionally. “Even as Orwell fought against Christianity, denying its metaphysical claims and finding it wanting in moral integrity, he had to acknowledge that the standards by which he judged it — and, indeed, the world — were Christianity’s own.” If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader Picture credit: Alamy

This week, Ed Thornton talks to Dr Stephen Tomkins about his new book, The Journey to the Mayflower: God’s outlaws and the invention of freedom. This year is the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower, the ship that took the Pilgrim Fathers to the New World. The Journey to the Mayflower is not a history of The Mayflower journey, however. “My book stops where most other books on the subject start,” Dr Tomkins says. “My story is about the illegal, underground church, the religious movement in the time of Elizabeth 1 and James 1, their experience of secret worship and of persecution and of exile, and the reasons why they felt the need to leave the country and seek a new life elsewhere. It’s the story of the English movement that then led people to America, rather than a story of American beginnings.” The Journey to the Mayflower: God’s outlaws and the invention of freedom by Stephen Tomkins is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £20 (CT Bookshop £18). Stephen Tomkins is the author of eight books on Christian history, including biographies of William Wilberforce and John Wesley. He is the editor of Reform magazine, and was previously deputy editor of Third Way. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Revd Peter Crumpler is a season-ticket holder at Brentford FC, a club that he has supported for more than half a century. He is also a Self-Supporting Minister in St Albans diocese and a former director of communications at Church House Westminster. In this week’s Church Times, he writes about some of the surprising lessons that that the Church can learn from football. And on this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton speaks to him to find out more. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

On this week’s podcast, Madeleine Davies moderates a discussion between Andy Root and Nick Shepherd about faith and doubt in a secular age. In a wide-ranging discussion, they talk about issues such as attendance stats, the lack of children and young people in churches, what to make of religious experience, and how to minister in a secular age. Dr Andy Root is Pro­fessor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary, and the author of Faith Formation in a Secular Age, published by Baker at £13.99 (Church Times Bookshop £12.60). Dr Nick Shep­herd, the director of Setting God’s People Free, the Renewal and Reform pro­gramme that explores how the Church “helps the whole people of God serve God’s mission in God’s world”. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The next Archbishop of York is to be the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, at present Bishop of Chelmsford, Downing Street announced on Tuesday. Bishop Cottrell spoke at a press conference at Church House on Tuesday morning and took questions from journalists, including the Church Times’s Madeleine Davies. This special edition of the podcast features highlights from that press conference. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Should Christians be ambitious? Is church growth something to aim for, or does it risk giving church leaders performance anxiety? These are among the questions that the Bishop of Penrith, Dr Emma Ineson, tackles in her new book Ambition: What Jesus said about power, success and counting stuff, published by SPCK. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Dr Ineson about these issues and more. The Church Times this week publishes a second extract from the book, which looks theologically at church growth. Dr Emma Ineson is the Bishop of Penrith in the diocese of Carlisle. From 2014 to 2019, she was Principal of Trinity College, Bristol. Ambition is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £9. You can also listen to the Church Times Podcast on the Church Times app for iPhone and iPad, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Irish poet Micheal O’Siadhail is admired and quoted by leading theologians. He has published 16 collections of poetry, and was awarded an Irish American Cultural Institute prize for poetry in 1982 and, in 1998, the Marten Toonder prize for Literature. The Five Quintets was published this year in the UK by Canterbury Press. It received the Conference on Christianity and Literature’s 2019 book of the year award. In a review published in August in the Church Times, Martyn Halsall writes: “In The Five Quintets he explores modernity, the philosophical currency evaluating Western thought for the past four centuries. From its demise emerges the insistent question: “What follows?” O’Siadhail brings a lifetime’s reading and analysis across many disciplines, together with formidable lyrical enthusiasm, an expansive linguistic palette, and a restless imagination, to suggest an answer of philosophical artistry and spiritual grace.” O’Siadhail visited London last month, during which time he spoke at Westminster Abbey alongside Lord Blunkett, a former Labour Cabinet minister. The next day, O’Siadhail gave a reading from The Five Quintets at Highgate School, in north London, to an audience of pupils, staff, and guests. Thank you to Highgate School for allowing the event to be recorded for the podcast. It was introduced by the school's Head of Religion & Philosophy, Robbie Leigh. The Five Quintets is available to buy from Church House Bookshop. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

“Richard Dawkins is the most outstanding missionary of atheism in Britain today”, Hugh Montefiore wrote in the Church Times in 2005. The next year, Dawkins’s The God Delusion was published. Now, Dawkins is taking aim at God again, with the publication of Outgrowing God: a Beginner’s Guide, which his publishers say is aimed at “a new generation”. Rupert Shortt is the Religion Editor at The Times Literary Supplement, and the author of books including God is No Thing (Hurst) and Does Religion Do More Harm than Good? (SPCK), which he spoke about on this podcast in March. Rupert’s new book is Outgrowing Dawkins: God for grown-ups, published by SPCK. It is not a point-by-point rebuttal of Dawkins’s book, Shortt tells me. Instead, he says, he is trying “to demonstrate why Dawkins’s arguments aren’t nearly as coherent as he imagines, but also to say some positives about the coherence of religious belief from a philosophical standpoint but also its practical value.” Outgrowing Dawkins is available from the Church House Bookshop for £9. You can also listen to the Church Times Podcast on the Church Times app for iPhone and iPad, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Strategic Development Fund has so far allocated £136m of Church Commissioners money to projects that it is hoped will reverse the pattern of decline in church attendance. In a two-part series, Madeleine Davies has been tracking down what the money has been spent on and has asked how this corresponds with the church’s hopes. On the podcast this week, Madeleine talks to Ed Thornton about what she has discovered. f you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Three years ago, a new digital team was created at Church House, having been given £2 million of “seed money” to spend over three years. The General Synod has approved £5 million for the next three years, to expand the digital work. What has been achieved so far and what are the plans for the next three years? Are dioceses and parishes benefiting? Can “likes” on social media replace embodied Christian community? This week, Ed Thornton puts these questions — and more — to Adrian Harris, the C of E’s Head of Digital; Amaris Cole, Senior Digital Communications Manager; and Thomas Allain-Chapman, head of publishing for the Archbishops’ Council. They also talk about the return of the #FollowTheStar Christmas campaign and how parishes can get involved. Adrian Harris says: “Digital . . . is not, for us, an end in itself. . . However innovative we are, at the heart we gather as the Body of Christ, and we want to do that by encouraging people into one of our churches.” If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The sudden fall of the Berlin Wall, on 9 November 1989, was an iconic and decisive moment that marked the end of the Cold War. It was, however, neither the first nor the last episode in the end of Com­munism in Eastern Europe. The Revd Alexander Faludy is an Anglican priest who holds dual British and Hungarian nationality, and lives in Budapest, where he is presently pursuing legal studies. Dr Anna Rowlands is the St Hilda Associate Professor of Catholic Social Thought & Practice in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. On this week's podcast, they discuss their memories of the momentous events of 1989 and reflect on the impact that they had on Europe. Dr Rowlands visited Berlin on a school trip shortly after the initial fall of the wall, as the city was beginning to experience the euphoria of unification. "That made an enormous impact on me,” she says. "I think really it was my political awakening." Fr Alex says: "It was the first political thing I remember, but for slightly unusual reasons, because my family were Hungarian refugees during the Cold War. My grandparents were very courageous Social Democrat opposition journalists, my grandfather had spent three years in a political prisoners camp doing a forced labour sentence — on a starvation diet for much of that time. . . "I remember seeing my father cry for the first time, because his father could go home from exile. The exile that was the foundational and framing fact of all of our lives." In a fascinating conversation, they reflect on, among other matters, the way in which Roman Catholicism in Eastern Europe was shaped by the legacy of the Cold War, and the rise of Christian nationalist governments in countries such as Hungary and Poland. Alexander Faludy has written this week's cover feature for the Church Times on the events leading up to and including the fall of the Berlin Wall. You can also listen to the Church Times Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Theology Slam – the competition that seeks young voices on theology and the contemporary world – will return in 2020. The competition, which was launched last year, is organised jointly by the Church Times, SCM Press, the Community of St Anselm, and the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC). It is open to anyone aged 18 to 30, lay or ordained, and consists of a qualifying round and a live final. In the qualifying round, applicants are asked to write 500 words on one of 12 contemporary issues, which include Theology and race; Theology and Celebrity; and Theology and Disability (full list below). Alongside the 500 words, applicants are also asked to submit a short video, introducing who they are and why they are interested in the topic. Entries open today (Friday 1 November) and the deadline is 11.59 p.m. on 5 January 2020. The final will take place on 26 March at St John’s Hoxton, in London. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talk to last year’s winner, Hannah Malcolm, who will be on the judging panel at the next Theology Slam. After that, you can hear excerpts from the finalists talks at the first Theology Slam final. They are Hannah Barr on Theology and the MeToo movement; Sara Prats on Theology and Mental Health; and Hannah Malcolm on Theology and the environment. For more information and to find out how to apply, visit churchtimes.co.uk/theology-slam. PHOTO CREDIT: STEFANO CAGNONI

This week, Madeleine Davies interviews Rachel Mann about her new book In the Bleak Midwinter: Advent and Christmas with Christina Rossetti. It is among a crop of books for advent reviewed in this Friday’s Church Times (25 October). In the Bleak Midwinter is published by Canterbury Press at £12.99 (Church Times Bookshop £11.70).

As the year 2000 beckoned, the Church of England decided that it would mark the Millennium by distributing thousands of yew trees across England. Every parish that requested one would get one. Twenty years after the distribution of 700 ‘Millennium Yews’, efforts are under way to track their upward progress. Ed Thornton talks to Madeleine Davies about the story, which you can also read about in this week’s paper. Plus, the Statistics for Mission 2018 report has just been published. Madeleine tells us what’s in it - including new statistics about enquiry and “Christian basics” courses, and youth work.

This week, Madeleine Davies talks to Dr James K. A. Smith about his new book On the Road with St Augustine, published by Baker Publishing at £11.99 (Church Times Bookshop £10). It offers the reader “an invitation to journey with an ancient African who will surprise you by the extent to which he knows you”. Smith’s contends that Augustine can make Christianity “plausible again for those who’ve been burned”. James K. A. Smith is Professor of Philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His previous books include You are what you love: the spiritual power of habit and How (not) to be secular: reading Charles Taylor.

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to the journalist and broadcaster Andrew Graystone about his new book Too Much Information? Ten essential questions for digital Christians, published by Canterbury Press. The book is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the special offer price of £10.39. Look out for a Comment article by Andrew in this Friday’s Church Times.

On this week’s podcast, the bestselling historian Tom Holland talks to Andrew Brown about Holland’s new book Dominion: The making of the Western mind. “This isn’t a history of Christianity,” Holland says. “It’s a history of what’s been revolutionary and transformative about Christianity: about how Christianity has transformed not just the West, but the entire world. “People in the West, even those who may imagine that they have emancipated themselves from Christian belief, in fact, are shot through with Christian assumptions about almost everything.” Holland’s previous books include Rubicon: The triumph and tragedy of the Roman Republic and Dynasty: The rise and fall of the house of Caesar. Dominion: The making of the Western mind, is published by Little, Brown at £25 (CT Bookshop £22.50). If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Dave Walker is known and loved by Church Times readers for his weekly cartoons on church life. At Greenbelt last month, Dave spoke to the Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig — whose work appears regularly in the Melbourne Age and the Sydney Morning Herald — about the art, craft, and pain of cartooning. “A cartoonist is pushing boundaries or trying to assert freedom of speech,” Leunig says. “‘A cartoon in good taste is a contradiction in terms’, an editor once said to me. It’s the cartoonist who's allowed to be the holy fool or the court jester. You’re allowed to get away with things, and it’s a privileged position.” Listen to the fascinating conversation on this week’s edition of the Church Times Podcast. Dave Walker’s seventh collection of Church Times cartoons, Revenge of the Flowers Arrangers, will be published at the end of the month by Canterbury Press. cartoonchurch.com

The second Festival of Preaching took place at Christ Church, Oxford this week, organised by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. Keynote talks by Paula Gooder and Mark Oakley can be viewed on our Facebook page here and here. Other talks will be available to purchase as audio files - keep an eye on festivalofpreaching.hymnsam.co.uk for an announcement, or the Festival’s Twitter account (@FofPreaching). And on this week’s Church Times Podcast, we bring you one of the talks from the Festival, by the American author and activist Brian McLaren: “Worship that destroys (and saves) the world”. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Festival of Preaching takes place at Christ Church, Oxford from Sunday 8 Sept to Tuesday 10 Sept. The Festival, organised by Church Times and Canterbury Press, aims to inspire, nurture and celebrate all who are called to proclaim the gospel today. Speakers include Brian McLaren, David Hoyle, Paula Gooder, and Mark Oakley. The Festival is sold out, but if you didn’t get a ticket, you can watch Paula Gooder and Mark Oakley’s talks live on the Church Times Facebook page, and videos of some of the other talks will be available afterwards on the Church Times YouTube channel. We also plan to feature a recording of one of the talks on the Church Times Podcast. The Revd Ally Barrett, a priest and tutor at Westcott House, Cambridge, will be leading a seminar on all-age preaching. Her book Preaching with All Ages, is published by Canterbury Press and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £13.50. Ed Thornton spoke to Ally Barrett ahead of the Festival.

A new book by Dr Mark Vernon, a psychotherapist and former parish priest, suggests that “something is going wrong with Christianity”. A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling, and the evolution of consciousness argues that “standard mystical theology” — the idea “that your life springs from God’s life and that this truth is yours to be discovered” — has been lost in the past 500 years. The following is a conversation between Dr Vernon and Jules Evans, policy director at the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary University University of London and the author of The Art of Losing Control: A philosopher’s search for ecstatic experience. A Secret History of Christianity is published by Christian Alternative at £14.99 (CT Bookshop £13.50). The Art of Losing Control: A philosopher’s search for ecstatic experience is published by Canongate at £9.99 (CT Bookshop £9). If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The podcast continues its summer break this week, so we are giving you the chance to listen again (or perhaps for the first time) to an interview from our archives. This interview with Professor John Swinton was first run in 2017. Professor Swinton is the winner of the 2016 Michael Ramsey Prize. The winner of the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize will be announced this weekend at the Greenbelt Festival. The podcast will return with a new episode on 30 August.

The podcast continues its summer break this week, so we are giving you the chance to listen again (or perhaps for the first time) to an interview from our archives. This episode was originally posted in July 2018. Guy Stagg spent 10 months walking from Canterbury to Jerusalem, following medieval pilgrim paths across 5,500 km. He began the journey after several years of mental illness, hoping that the walk would heal him. A non-believer, he wanted to understand religion by taking part in its rituals. The Crossway, published by Picador, is an account of his journey, a mix of travel and memoir, history and current affairs. It is now out in paperback, and is available from the Church House Bookshop. Guy came into Church Times offices to talk about his extraordinary journey. Picture: copyright Barney Poole Photography

The podcast is taking a summer break this week. But we're giving you the chance to listen again (or for the first time, if you missed it the first time round) to the Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie in conversation with Tom Holland, about Fergus's book A Field Guide to the English Clergy (Oneworld). It was recorded at Hatchards bookshop, in central London, in November 2018. Fergus is a guest columnist in this week's Church Times. His next book, Priests de la Résistance!, will be published in October by Oneworld. Tom Holland's next book, Dominion: The making of the Western Mind, will be published next month by Little Brown.

At Launde Abbey last month, Dame Hilary Mantel and Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch reflected on the life of Thomas Cromwell and his place in the Reformation. They were speaking at an event to mark the 900th anniversary of Launde Abbey, which Cromwell was fond of visiting. Both hardly need introducing. Mantel is, of course, the author of Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, published by Fourth Estate, each of which were awarded the Booker Prize. The final book in the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, is due to be published next March. Professor MacCulloch’s Thomas Cromwell: A life, was published last year by Allen Lane, to critical acclaim. In this week’s Church Times, we publish an edited record of their fascinating discussion. And on the podcast we bring you even more of the event. In this episode, part 1, we hear presentations from each of them about how, as a novelist and historian respectively, they have approached the Putney boy who became Henry VIII’s chief minister. The event was introduced and moderated by the Bishop of Brixworth, the Rt Revd John Holbrook.

At Launde Abbey last month, Dame Hilary Mantel and Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch reflected on the life of Thomas Cromwell and his place in the Reformation. They were speaking at an event to mark the 900th anniversary of Launde Abbey, which Cromwell was fond of visiting. In part two, we hear the conversation between them, introduced and moderated by the Bishop of Brixworth, the Rt Revd John Holbrook

Last month, Oxford University was given £150m by a US billionaire, Stephen A. Schwarzman, to study the ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence. In the announcement, he warned that technology left unaffected would “trample over certain aspects of human behaviour and human opportunities”, before setting out the potential to “reaffirm western values” and “help the world adjust to changing times.” Which raises the question: whose values exactly would we be reaffirming? We commissioned this week’s Artificial Intelligence special to explore this question, and others surrounding ethics and AI. In particular, we asked four writers to reflect on what the Bishop of Oxford has suggested is the deep question of our age: “What does it mean to be a human?” We also feature an extract from a new book by Tom Chivers, who spent months with some of those who have long worried about the existential threat posed by AI. In this podcast, Madeleine Davies talks to him about how worried we should be. Tom’s book, The AI Does Not Hate You: Superintelligence, rationality and the race to save the world, is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson at £16.99 (CT Bookshop £15.30).

Hattie Williams, senior reporter at the Church Times, has covered the proceedings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in the Anglican Church from the beginning. The final hearing ended on 12 July, and a report is due next summer. Hattie talks to Paul Handley, editor, about the experience, and what she thinks the Church can learn.

It’s time for the Church to start talking about race, says Ben Lindsay, a Pastor at Emmanuel Church, in south London and CEO and founder of Power the Fight, a charity that empowers communities to end youth violence. From the UK Church’s complicity in the transatlantic slave trade to the whitewashing of Christianity throughout history, the Church has a lot to answer for when it comes to race relations, he says. His book, We Need to Talk About Race, is published on 18 July by SPCK. The Archbishop of Canterbury says that it is “a must-read for the UK Church”. Ben Lindsay will be speaking about the book at a free event at St Paul’s Cathedral on 29 October. Madeleine Davies interviewed Ben Lindsay about the book in a café in south London.

The author and activist Shane Claiborne is the founder of The Simple Way in Philadelphia and President of Red Letter Christians. He was in the UK recently to launch the UK arm of Red Letter Christians, and to talk about his new book, Beating Guns: Hope for people who are weary of violence, co-written with Michael Martin (BrazosPress). Ed Thornton spoke to Shane about how Christians can respond creatively and prophetically to gun and knife violence. Picture credit: Red Letter Christians

Barbara Brown Taylor says that it wasn’t until she began digging into the faith of those who didn’t share hers, that she really began to understand her own. It was this journey towards meeting God in “so many new hats” that ignited her “holy envy” – the title of her new book, published in the UK by Canterbury Press. Barbara Brown Taylor sat down with Martin Wroe at the Church Times offices to talk about the book, which is available from the Church Times Bookshop at £15.29. An edited version of the interview is printed in our first Summer Books supplement, which comes with this Friday’s Church Times (28 June). The 12-page supplement includes holiday reading recommendations from contributors including Paula Gooder, Malcolm Guite, Fergus Butler-Gallie, Bishop Stephen Cottrell, and Eve Poole. There are also reviews of novels, non-fiction, and spiritual titles.

The fashion for big history - books that no only survey the rise and fall of humans and their societies, but also try to discern some order from within the chaos - has grown a great deal in recent years. Names like Niall Ferguson, Yuval Noah Harari, Francis Fukuyama, and Peter Frankopan are widely known and respected. But, before them all, in the 1990s, Jared Diamond was publishing books that married biology, anthropology, ecology, linguistics, and history, and really set the pattern for the genre. The Pulitzer-prize winning author's latest book, Upheaval: How nations cope with crisis and change (Penguin), explores how seven countries – Finland, Japan, Chile, Indonesia, Germany, Australia, and the United States – have managed to cope with major crises in their history. Nick Spencer spoke to Jared Diamond about the book during a recent visit to London – the same day, as it happened, that President Trump was in town. Upheaval: How nations cope with crisis and change is published by Penguin at £14.99.

This week, Hattie Williams talks to the Bishop of Kensington, Dr Graham Tomlin, about his report, The Social Legacy of Grenfell: An agenda for change. 14 June marks the second anniversary of the Grenfell disaster. And Ed Thornton talks to the Revd Nicholas Mercer – a former Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army, who campaigns with the charity Redress on behalf of survivors of torture. He is urging churches to mark the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, on 26 June.

“The Church has misunderstood Paul badly.” So Steve Chalke argues in his new book, The Lost Message of Paul, which will be published by SPCK on 20 June. “We have read Paul’s words through our own set of assumptions,” Steve says. “We need to go back to his worldview and see things the way he saw them.” Ed Thornton to Steve Chalke about the book at the offices of the charity he runs in central London, the Oasis Charitable Trust. The book is available to pre-order from the Church House Bookshop – go to Chbookshop.co.uk

“I am large, I contain multitudes”. So wrote Walt Whitman in his 1855 masterpice Song of Myself. The American poet’s 200th birthday is on Friday (31 May). In this week’s Church Times, Dr Michael Robertson, author of Worshipping Whalt: The Whitman disciples (Princeton Press), argues that while Whitman has been celebrated as a poet of democracy and of nature, among other things, his religious purpose is under-appreciated. On this week's podcast, Dr Robertson speaks to Madeleine Davies about Whitman’s life, his literary and religious influences, and reads for us some of his remarkable poetry. Picture credit: Alamy

This week, Madeleine Davies talks to Vicky Walker about her new book Relatable: Exploring God, Love and Connection in the Age of Choice. Picture credit: Dipesh Dhimar

The Archbishop of Canterbury delivered the William Temple Foundation’s annual lecture on Monday, at Lambeth Palace. It was entitled Reimagining Britain: Faith and the Common Good. The William Temple Foundation’s director of research, Professor Chris Baker, described it as “a realistic but hopeful assessment of the state of the nation, the place of the church and religion, and the prospects for a revitalised social and public sphere. It was a lecture brimming with intellectual and theological ideas, but also characterised by down-to-earth and personal anecdotes.”

The Church of England has been talking a lot about estates ministry of late. Madeleine Davies has visited the Byker Wall Estate in Newcastle, where a church is thinking imaginatively about mission. She tells us about it. And we hear from three of the 21 4 21 young interfaith ambassadors about peacemaking and bridge-building. Photo credit: North News and Pictures

This week, the editor Paul Handley reports from Hong Kong on what has been going on at the ACC-17 - the 17th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. Photo: Conrad Yu

This week, Ed Thornton talk to our Ireland correspondent Gregg Ryan about the reaction of political and church leaders to the killing of the journalist Lyra McKee last week, and her funeral at St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast. And we hear from the editor Paul Handley before he sets off for Hong Kong, to attend the 17th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, whose members are asking for more say in the running of the Anglican Communion.

“It really isn’t an exaggeration to say that the future of the human race is at stake”, said Rowan Williams in an Extinction Rebellion video last month. On Sunday, Lord Williams led a prayer vigil for the rebellion outside St Paul’s Cathedral, before the movement this week brought parts of central London to a standstill, as they demand the Government take more action to combat climate change. But who are Extinction Rebellion, what do they seek to achieve, and what are Christians contributing to the movement? Ed Thornton speaks to Joe Ware of Christian Aid, an expert on climate-change issues and activism, who has been talking to Christians involved in the movement. And, at the end of this episode, Malcolm Guite reads a villanelle for Easter Day. Photo credit: Vladimir Morozov

This week, Madeleine Davies interviews Pete Greig, the “bewildered instigator” of the 24-7 prayer movement. He is also closely involved with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Thy Kingdom Come prayer initiative. Pete is a pastor and the author of books including God on Mute and Dirty Glory. His latest book is called How to Pray: a simple guide for normal people, which is published by Hodder. It’s available at the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £12.60 – go to chbookshop.co.uk.

This week, Professor John Swinton speaks on why in a culture that prioritises speed, efficiency, and productivity, we should remember that love takes time. Professor Swinton is a former nurse, a minister in the Church of Scotland, and Professor Practical Theology and Pastoral Care at the University of Aberdeen. His books include Dementia: Living in the memories of God, which won the 2016 Michael Ramsey Prize, and Becoming Friends of Time (SCM Press). This talk was delivered at the Theology Slam competition last month, at which he was a judge. All the talks from the event can be viewed on our Facebook page and at churchtimes.co.uk/theology-slam.

This week, Madeleine Davies talks to Rupert Shortt about his new book, Does Religion do more harm than good?, published by SPCK. We publish an extract in this week’s paper and John Saxbee reviews it in our books pages. The book is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £9 – go to chbookshop.co.uk. Rupert Shortt is Religion Editor of The Times Literary Supplement and the author of critically acclaimed books including God is No Thing, Christianaphobia, and Rowan’s Rule: the biography of the Archbishop. You can also listen to the Church Times Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms.

Adam Becket brings us the latest on Brexit - and how the C of E hopes that "tea and prayer drop-ins" next weekend will foster reconciliation among Leavers and Remainers. Madeleine Davies tells us about the first HTB-supported resource church in the Church in Wales - which is facing some opposition. And the editor Paul Handley talks about the Train-a-Priest Fund, which helps ordinands who face financial hardship.

This week, Ed Thornton speaks to the writer and broadcaster Peter Stanford about his new book, Angels: A Visible and invisible history, published by Hodder. The book looks at the origins of angels in religious thought and asks why, in a secular age, they remain more compelling and comforting to many than God. You can buy the book at the Church House Bookshop for the offer price of £16 – go to chbookshophymnsam.co.uk or call 020 7799 4064.

On Thursday evening (7 March), the final of the Theology Slam competition took place at St John’s Hoxton in London. It was a great evening with talks by Hannah Barr (theology and the #MeToo movement, Sara Prats (theology and mental health), and Hannah Malcolm (theology and the environment). The talks are featured on the podcast – and the winner is announced at the end. The winning talk will be published in next week’s Church Times and on our website. You can watch the whole event on the Church Times Facebook page, and on our YouTube channel from Friday afternoon – in addition to the talks, there are a Q&A, judges feedback, and talks from John Swinton on theology and disability and Eve Poole on theology and consumerism. Picture Credit: Stefano Cagnoni Pictured (l-r): Hannah Barr, Hannah Malcolm, Sara Pratts

What causes someone to go from being a committed Christian to a convinced non-believer? On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Dr John Marriott, an expert on so-called “deconversion”. His book, A Recipe for Disaster, is published by Wipf & Stock.

This week, two gay priests of different generations talk about the challenges they've faced in the Church. They have both recently published books about their experiences. The Revd Marcus Green has writtenThe Possibility of Difference (Kevin Mahew) and the Revd Stanley Underhill's book is called Coming out of the Black Country (Zuleika). Both books are available at the Church Times Bookshop.

Transforming the one million who regularly attend Church of England services into “agents of mission” is crucial to the Church’s multi-million-pound evangelism push, the General Synod will hear next week. Ed Thornton talks to Madeleine Davies about the drive to give the laity confidence to evangelise - and whether English reticence stops them from doing so. Plus, Adam Becket catches up with the Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, Prebendary Rose Hudson-Wilkin, at the C of E's National Education Conference. He asks her about Crispin Blunt MP’s call for prayers in parliament to be scrapped.

This week, the education secretary Damian Hinds talks to Hattie Williams about why he would like more faith schools to convert to academies. The Bishop of Gloucester, Rachel Treweek, talks to Adam Becket about how churches must not ignore the realities of domestic abuse. And the Bishop of Liverpool, Paul Bayes, talks to Madeleine Davies about his new book, The Table.

Meg Munn was appointed first independent chair of the Church of England’s National Safeguarding Panel in September. She took over from the Bishop of Bath & Wells, Peter Hancock, who is the lead bishop on safeguarding. Meg Munn is a practising Methodist and former social worker and former MP, who established and chaired the All-Party Child Protection Parliamentary Group. She left Parliament in 2015 to become an independent governance consultant. Hattie Williams sat down with Meg Munn for her first interview since she took up the post. You can read a write up of the interview in this week’s paper and on our website. A fuller version follows on this podcast.

This week, more Brexit uncertainty – what are the bishops saying? Adam Becket has been hearing from them. And we hear from the Revd Christine Smith, publishing director of Hymns Ancient & Modern, about the second Festival of Preaching, which is being organised by Canterbury Press Norwich and the Church Times

This week, a critical moment for Brexit: the Archbishop of Canterbury says that a no-deal Brexit would be a moral failure, and Dame Caroline Spelman calls on the Church to pray for the nation. What’s going on in the diocese of Oxford, where more than 100 clergy are uneasy with their bishops’ approach to sexuality? And, news of the finalists of the inaugural 'Theology Slam' competition.

On the first episode of the new year, editor Paul Handley talks about work of the groups charged with resolving the Church’s disputes about sexuality. He has been quizzing two of the people leading the Living in Love and Faith group, the Bishop of Coventry, Dr Christopher Cocksworth, and Dr Eeva John. What are the project’s aims and what will its work mean for the Church’s stance on same-sex relationships?

This week, we talk to actor and playwright Justin Butcher about his new book Walking to Jerusalem: Blisters, hope and other facts on the ground, published by Hodder. It tells the story of a pilgrimage from London to Jerusalem in 2017, which marked three major anniversaries: the centenary of the Balfour Declaration; the 50th year of Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian territors; and the tenth year of the blockade of Gaza. Brian Eno says that the book "displays the kind of unusual empathy essential in that tangled and tragic situation". Walking to Jerusalem can be purchased from the Church Times Bookshop for £15.30. Picture credit: Mark Kensett

This week, Ed Thornton talks to John Pritchard, the former Bishop of Oxford and a popular writer of books such as The Life and Work of a Priest, Why go to Church?, and God Lost and Found. His latest book is called Five Events that Made Christianity, published by SPCK. In the book, he takes readers on a pilgrimage of the Holy Land, as he unpacks the five great events that made Christianity: Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. For each event, he explores what happened, what does it mean, and what does it mean for us now. The book is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for £9. You can read an extract, on what the incarnation means for us now, in our Christmas double issue, out next Friday. There’s still time to buy a Christmas gift subscription of the Church Times for £85, a 30% saving on the paper’s cover price. It also includes a Christmas card announcing the gift, a bar of Fairtrade chocolate, and one of three great books. The offer is available until the end of the year, but if you order today (Friday) and we will endeavour to send the book in time for Christmas. Go to Churchtimes.co.uk/christmas. Image credit: KT BRUCE

This week, the Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie is in conversation with the writer and historian Tom Holland. They talk about Fergus's new book, A Field Guide to the English Clergy: A compendium of of diverse eccentrics, pirates, prelates and adventurers; all Anglican, some even practising. The conversation was recorded at an event at Hatchard’s Bookshop in London last month. The book is available from the Church Times Bookshops at the special price of £11.70.

On this week's podcast, Madeleine Davies speaks exclusively to Archbishop Justin Welby, in Blakeney, Norfolk, his childhood escape. The Archbishop speaks candidly, among other things, about why he draws on his difficult family history in his public ministry; whether he would have liked to have been an MP; and why he loves to mess around on boats. Subscribe to the Church Times Podcast on iTunes.

This week, freelance journalist Andy Walton joins us to talk about his recent visit to the diocese of Ely, which has ambitious plans to increase churchgoing. Andy visited a new church-plant in Huntingdon and spoke to people in the diocese about the plans. Plus, Madeleine Davies reports back on her recent visit to Norfolk with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

This week we have published a very special edition of the Church Times to mark the centenary of the Armistice. Deputy Editor Glyn Paflin has delved into the archives to produce an eight-page supplement recounting the course of the First World War as seen through the pages of the Church Times at the time. At the end of this podcast, he reads the paper’s Leader from 15 November 2018. Our coverage also includes stories and pictures of how churches have been marking the centenary; William Philpott, Professor of the History of Warfare at King’s College London, considers why the Armistice did not lead to world peace; we look at G.A. Studdert Kennedy, aka Woodbine Willie in a new light; and Peta Dunstan tells the story of Dorothy Buxton. We also have a fascinating feature by Phillip Dawson about he discovered the stories of the names on the war memorial at Christ Church, Southgate, in north London, with the help of obituaries written by its Vicar during the First World War, the Revd Charles Peploe, and a wealth of other sources. Ed Thornton spoke to Phillip about the project brought renewed meaning to the church’s remembrance.

Where are all the young people? Across the country, the average C of E church has just three children attending, and the smallest 25 per cent have none at all. At the Christian Resources Exhibition last month, the Church Times Live event brought together a panel of youth workers to talk about this: Ali Campbell, who runs the Resource youthwork consultancy; Savannah John-Leighton, Youth Leader at St John’s, Hoxton in London; and Polly Baker, who works as a youthworker on an estate. The session was chaired by Madeleine Davies. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes

This week, Ed Thornton speaks to Adrian Harris, the Head of Digital for the Church of England, and Thomas Allain Chapman, the Head of Publishing for Church House, about the C of E’s Christmas campaign this year: #FollowtheStar. As well as offering daily reflections on the website and app, the campaign encourages churches to make the most of the surge in interest in the 72 hours running up to Christmas Day by giving details of their services and events on the church-finding website A Church Near You. If you are not yet a subscriber to the Church Times, you can try your first ten issues for just £10. Visit churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe You can subscribe to the Church Times Podcast on iTunes.

Robert McCrum is an associate editor of The Observer, and was the paper’s literary for 12 years. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of Faber & Faber, where he edited writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Marilynne Robinson, and Peter Carey. His books include The Story of English and a definitive life of PG Woodhouse. Robert McCrum’s latest book is Every Third Thought: On life, death and the endgame, published by Picador. The book confronts an existential question: in a world where we have learnt to live well at all costs, can we make peace with what Freud calls 'the necessity of dying'? Searching for answers leads him to others for advice and wisdom, and Every Third Thought is populated by the voices of brain surgeons, psychologists, cancer patients, hospice workers, writers and poets. “Historically, the oldie turned to God in the search for fulfilment during his or her later years,” McCrum writes. “Today, with the idea of God under assault from belligerent atheists, and an indifferent majority of committed agnostics, there’s still a hunger for a dialogue with something bigger and richer than individualistic materialism.” You can subscribe to the Church Times Podcast on iTunes

For this week’s environmental issue, timed to coincide with the report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we appointed a guest editor: Richard Black, a former BBC environment correspondent, and director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. With his help, we have assembled an impressive group of commentators to reflect on the threat to the planet posed by global warming. Among them are Christiana Figueres, who was the head of the UN’s climate body at the time of the Paris Agreement, Emily Shuckburgh, a climate scientist specialising in the Arctic, Nick Holtam, the C of E’s lead bishop on the environment, and Loretta Minghella, the First Church Estates Commissioner. Paul Handley and Madeleine Davies spoke to Richard Black about the challenge of climate change. You can subscribe to the Church Times Podcast on iTunes

This week, we talk about clergy well-being – are unrealistic job descriptions leading to stress and burnout? We hear about Conservative Party Conference and what the party’s Christians have been up to. And we hear from the Church Times Green Health Live conference – about how churches are harnessing the healing power of gardening. You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

On this week’s episode, we bring news of an exciting new competition – Theology Slam - which aims to find young voices who think theologically about the contemporary world. Ed Thornton talks to one of the organisers, David Shervington of SCM Press, Also on this week’s episode, Adam Becket brings us up to speed with the Labour Party Conference, where Jeremy Corbyn seems to have been paying attention to Christians in his party. And Madeleine Davies talks about the church and housing estates, and why the Bishop of Burnley sees signs of hope. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

The UK is undergoing a great upheaval, which will change our relationships with the rest of the world and materially affect millions of people in this country. We're talking about Brexit, of course. In this week’s issue, we explore this political shift, from different angles and in depth: how we have got to here and where we might go next. Contributors include the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines, who is lead bishop for Europe in the House of Lords. Ed Thornton spoke to Bishop Baines about why he thinks the Church should not be silent about Brexit and what its role should be in post-Brexit Britain.

This week, the Church Commissioners have defended their multi-million-pound stake in Amazon after the online company was heavily criticised by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his speech to the Trade Union Congress this week for “paying almost nothing in tax”. Madeleine Davies tells us how she broke the story. Plus, we look at our new month-long feature series on the religious life: from centuries-old monasteries to dispersed communities and new monastics. Read these, and all our stories on the Church Times website. If you are not yet a subscriber to the Church Times, you can try your first ten issues for just £10. Visit churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.

Born in Latakia, a port city in Syria, Fr Nadim Nassar is the first Syrian priest in the Church of England, and director of the Awareness Foundation. This week, Madeleine Davies caught up with him about his first book, The Culture of God: the Syrian Jesus - Reading the Divine Mind, Sailing into the Divine Heart, published by Hodder. He talked about growing up in the region where Christ was born, how his faith was shaped by living through four wars, and bringing passion and emotion to ministry. The book is available from the Church Times Bookshop for the special offer price of £13.49.

On this week’s podcast, Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, the first African Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, talks to Madeleine Davies. The interview is also written up in this week’s issue, which is out now.

Rebecca Stott’s book In the Days of Rain tells the story of her family’s membership of and escape from the Exclusive Brethren. Reviewing the book for the Church Times, Malcolm Doney described it as “a dark journey into indoctrination, cruelty, and control”, and a “powerful and compelling” read. It was awarded the Costa Biography Award and is available in paperback from the Church House Bookshop for £9.99. Rebecca Stott will be in conversation with Malcolm Doney at this weekend’s Greenbelt Festival. Ed Thornton spoke to Rebecca Stott about the book.

"We are gripped by the power of consumerism – but it doesn’t have to be that way," says theologian Dr Eve Poole. In her new book, Buying God: Consumerism and theology, published by SCM Press, Eve Poole explores how we can wean ourselves off the material and on the eternal. She has also written on the subject in the Comment section of this week’s Church Times. Ed Thornton spoke to Eve about the new book, which is available from the Church House Bookshop at a special offer price of £14.99. Dr Eve Poole is an academic, teaches leadership to business leaders, and is tThird Church Estates Commissioner. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

This week, Madeleine Davies and Ed Thornton talk about the latest wave of church plants from Holy Trinity, Brompton. What’s the strategy? They also discuss the ethical questions a senior cleric has been asking about the Church House Conference Centre hosting the annual Land Warfare Conference. And Ed talks to the Revd Peter Crumpler about why democracy needs local newspapers, and how churches can help them to survive. If you don’t subscribe to the Church Times, go to churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe, where you can get 10 issues for £10. You can also subscribe to the Church Times Podcast on iTunes. Enjoying the podcast? Please rate and review us on iTunes – it helps people to find us.

The Revd Mark Meynell is Europe and Caribbean Director for Langham Preaching, part of the Langham Partnership. For nine years, he was on the senior ministry team at All Souls Langham Place, in London. His latest book, published by IVP, is called When Darkness Seems My Closest Friend. It explores the shame, confusion, exhaustion, isolation and despair of living with depression, especially as a Christian minister. It seeks wisdom from the Bible – especially the Psalms, which he describes as his “oxygen tank” in darkest times – although it does not pretend to offer easy answers. Ed Thornton spoke to Mark Meynell about the book.

This week, our reporters Madeleine Davies, Hattie Williams, and Adam Becket discuss the key debates and highlights from the General Synod in York, which finished on Tuesday. Plus, a survivor of clerical abuse, Gilo, tells us about a Synod fringe meeting on safeguarding, last Friday evening, and gives his thoughts on the debate on the House of Bishops report, which took place the next day. In this podcast, Gilo is joined by Martin Sewell, a retired child protection lawyer who represents the diocese of Rochester on the General Synod.

Guy Stagg spent 10 months walking from Canterbury to Jerusalem, following medieval pilgrim paths across 5,500 km. He began the journey after several years of mental illness, hoping that the walk would heal him. A non-believer, he wanted to understand religion by taking part in its rituals. The Crossway, published by Picador, is an account of his journey, a mix of travel and memoir, history and current affairs. Guy came into Church Times offices to talk about his extraordinary journey. The Crossway is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop. Subscribe to the Church Times Podcast on iTunes

On this week’s podcast, how can church investors step up pressure on corporate polluters to combat climate change? Ed Thornton talk to the Chief Investment Officer of Epworth Investment Management, Stephen Beer, who manages the investments of the Methodist Church. And we hear about GA Studdert Kennedy, or Woodine Willie, the World War 1 Chaplain. A new critical edition of his book of theology from the trenches, The Hardest Part, has just been published by SCM Press. Its editors, Professor Thomas O’Loughlin and the Revd Dr Stuart Bell, talk about his significance and influence. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

For this week’s podcast, Madeleine Davies spoke to Vicky Beeching, who was given an award last year by the Archbishop of Canterbury for her outstanding contribution to contemporary worship music. Her new memoir, Undivided, tells her story of coming out, becoming whole, and living free from shame. You can read the interview in this week’s Church Times.

Rob Bell was once the pastor of a megachurch in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was saluted by one newspaper as “the next Billy Graham”. Today, he is more likely to be found on stage at a stand-up comedy club in downtown Los Angeles than in a pulpit. Ed Thornton interviewed Bell for this week’s issue of the Church Times, and we post the full interview here, much of which didn’t make it into the paper. Rob Bell brings his Holy Shift Tour to the UK and Ireland from 2 to 14 of July. The tour is being organised by Greenbelt – for tour dates and to buy tickets, visit www.greenbelt.org.uk/rob-bell. Tickets are only available from the Greenbelt website in advance, not from the venues or on the night. You can subscribe to the Church Times Podcast on iTunes

This week, Madeleine Davies fills us in on the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech on Europe - a story the Church Times broke on Tuesday that has provoked outcry among Brexiteers. Plus, the Bishop of Derby, Alister Redfern, talks to Hattie Williams about the C of E's a new app to help people spot signs of slavery at car washes. And, an extract from a fascinating conversation between the former President of South Africa, F.W. de Klerk, and Lord Finkelstein, recorded at the 75th anniversary dinner of the Council of Christians and Jews. You can subscribe to the Church Times Podcast on iTunes.

This week, the Bishop of Burnley, Philip North, tells us why it is time richer dioceses shared their wealth with poorer ones; Madeleine Davies fills us in on the story of whether priests in Canterbury are being advised to betray the Seal of the Confessional; and Adam Becket goes to an interfaith Iftar meal in St John’s Wood Synagogue in London, where he speaks to the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

This month sees the publication of Phoebe, Dr Paula Gooder’s first foray into fiction. The story of the Deacon and Patron mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Romans, it invites us into the world of first-century Christianity, in some respects, not so different to our own. In an interview with Madeleine Davies, Dr Gooder talked about the power of the imagination, women pursuing their calling then and today, and whether, as a Church, we’ve got any better at arguing with each other. The interview is published in this week's Church Times. Don’t forget that you can get 10 issues of Church Times for just £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe You can also subscribe to the Church Times Podcast on iTunes.

The political philosopher John Gray is the former Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics. His best-selling books include Straw Dogs, False Dawn: The delusions of global capitalism, and Black Mass: Apocalyptic religion and the death of utopia. His new book, Seven Types of Atheism, is published by Allen Lane. We asked Nick Spencer, research director at Theos and author of Atheists: The origin of the species (Bloomsbury), to sit down with John Gray to talk about the new book, and about his philosophical and political journey. The conversation was recorded in a hotel bar in central London, so there is some background noise. An edited version of the interview is published in the 25 May issue of the Church Times, and an extended version on our website. You can subscribe to the Church Times Podcast on iTunes

The first Church Times Festival of Poetry was held in the picturesque setting of Sarum College in Salisbury Cathedral Close, during one of the finest Bank Holiday Weekends in memory. The opening talk was given by Canon Mark Oakley, the Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, titled A Splash of Words: 'Why poetry'? There is full coverage of the festival in this week’s Church Times. Picture credit: Ash Mills

On this week’s podcast, Adam Becket talk about how Bishops in the Lords have been flexing their muscles on Brexit. We hear from Hattie Williams about the inspiring story of a former heroin addict in Bolton who is now part of a church-plant that is helping others to overcome addiction. And our editor Paul Handley talks about 21 for 21, an exciting new initiative to recognise young interfaith ambassadors.

In her column last week, Canon Angela Tilby suggested that there is an Evangelical takeover of the Church of England. The article has been shared far and wide and provoked many letters and tweets – some supportive but many voicing strong disagreement. Ed Thornton spoke to Angela more about her article, and also brought into the conversation Fr Craig Huxley, a priest in Kent who wrote a blog in response, “The Myth of the Evangelical Takeover”.

The Revd Guy Hewitt is the High Commissioner for Barbados to the United Kingdom and an Anglican priest. He has been leading the campaign for thousands of members of the “Windrush generation” to be recognised as British citizens. Ed Thornton spoke to Guy Hewitt about the extraordinary progress the campaign has made in the past two weeks, with the Government performing a u-turn in at unprecedented speed. “What we were in this for was to get justice for the Windrush generation”, he said. “For me it’s not about recriminations or even who is at fault: it is about continuing to work forward to find a solution.” If you don’t already subscribe to the CT, you can try 10 issues for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe.

On this week's podcast, we talk about the Churches' different responses to the Syria air strikes; the "massive under-employment people" in the C of E; and the Archbishop of Canterbury talks about plans for a brand new library at Lambeth Palace

On this week’s podcast, we talk about the moving and powerful diaries of RAF Chaplain, the Revd Guy Mayfield, who ministered to Battle of Britain Fighter Pilots. Plus, Madeleine Davies unpacks Pope Francis’s latest Apostolic Exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate (“Rejoice and be Glad”) which combines a celebration of ordinary acts of service with calls to radical action. And we give a flavour of what else is in the paper this week.

This week, we discuss new signs of life in the rural Church that are turning around the stereotypes of shrinking congregations in crumbling buildings. Plus, 50 years after his assassination, we hear about how Martin Luther King Jr was remembered this week, and the social activism that he has inspired.

What do Nick Cave, Delia Smith, Michael Gove, and Caron Armstrong have in common? They have all been interviewed by Peter Stanford, the Roman Catholic journalist and biographer. On the podcast this week, Ed Thornton interviews Peter Stanford on his new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About Faith published by Hodder. It features a collection of 44 interviews with high-profile figures, who talk unguardedly about faith.

Loretta Minghella became the First Church Estates Commissioner in November 2017, succeeding Sir Andreas Whittam Smith. Before arriving at Church House, she was chief executive of Christian Aid for seven and a half years, and before that, she headed up the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, a job she says got “very rocky indeed” when the 2008 financial crisis hit. Our Editor Paul Handley spoke to Loretta Minghella about how her experience prepared her for this latest role, and how the Commissioners are pressuring companies to improve their record on climate change and executive pay, among other things. Subscribe to the Church Times and receive 10 issues for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe.

On this week’s podcast, Canon Andrew Davison, the Starbridge Lecturer in Theology and Natural Sciences, talks about Professor Stephen Hawking’s scientific achievements and the challenges he posed to theology. We also hear from Church Times columnist and papal biographer Paul Vallely about Pope Francis’s seismic first five years. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 - visit www.churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe

On this week's episode of the Church Times Podcast, Ed Thornton talks to the Rt Revd Professor N.T. (Tom) Wright about his new book, Paul: a biography, published by SPCK. The book traces Paul's journey from his early childhood through to his zealous persecution of the early church, to his experience at Damascus, and his tireless missionary journeys, ministry and writings, before his likely death as a Christian martyr in the mid-60s. The book is on offer at the Church House Bookshop for £16.99 – visit www.chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 - visit www.churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe

This week we discuss the warnings made by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his forthcoming book, Reimagining Britain, in which he argues that the UK is at a political and moral tipping-point. We also look at reactions to the Ecumenical Marriage Bill which was debated in the House of Lords last week, and reports on growing numbers of converts to Christianity.

This week, we discuss the life and influence of Billy Graham, the American Evangelist who died on Wednesday at the age of 99. We also look at the latest ministry statistics which show that although the Church of England had 14 per cent more theological students overall in 2017, more than eight per cent fewer were in residential training. Plus, we highlight a feature by Mark Vernon on recognising and responding to narcissistic personality disorder in the Church.

This week, we post an edited recording editor Paul Handley’s interview with Justin Welby about his first five years as Archbishop of Canterbury. In conversation at Lambeth Palace last week, the Archbishop spoke, among other things, about the limits of his power, the state of the Anglican Communion, the C of E’s struggles over sexuality, and his forthcoming book on the state of Britain. The interview is published in edited form in this week’s paper, and in its entirety on our website. You can try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 – visit www.churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe to find out more.

In a special edition of the podcast this week, we discuss the key debates, motions, and speakers from the General Synod of the Church of England, which met in London from Thursday to Saturday, last week. This included a debate on valuing people with Down's syndrome, a motion on Methodist communion, a presentation on safeguarding, and a review of the workings of the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC). You can read the top stories from the Synod on our website churchtimes.co.uk and a full digest of the sessions will appear in our paper and online, on Friday.

Listen to a taste of our exclusive interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, this week, in which he spoke on the challenges of safeguarding facing the Church, and the related issues the Archbishop himself has had to address, since taking office, five years ago. The full interview will be published in our paper and online, next week, and will be also made available as a Podcast. A full special edition Podcast will also be released on Monday, in which we will discuss the motions, debates, and key speakers at the General Synod of the Church of England currently meeting in London. The last session of this February Synod will conclude on Saturday afternoon.

This week, we discuss the warnings issued by the Bishop of Leeds, the Rt Revd Nick Baines, during a Brexit debate in the House of Lords; and an ongoing campaign from the Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, on the negative impact of primetime gambling adverts on children. Plus, his Bill to name mothers on marriage registers

Malcolm Guite will be known to Church Times readers as the author of the weekly Poet’s Corner column. He is the chaplain of Girton College, Cambridge, and a poet, teacher and musician. His latest book, published by Canterbury Press, is called Love Remember: 40 poems of loss, lament and hope. It is, Malcolm writes, “written to give voice both to love and to lamentation, to find expression for grief without losing hope, to help us honour the dead with tears, yet still to glimpse through those tears the light of resurrection”. Malcolm came to the Church Times offices this week to talk more about the book. If you don’t already subscribe to the Church Times, and would like to read Malcolm’s column each week, along with a host of news, features, and reviews, go to churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe, where you can get 10 issues for £10.

This week we discuss the conclusions of a report from the Cathedrals Working Group on the sustainability, governance, and financial management of cathedrals in the UK. We also explore the second week in our series on young people and the Church: why people left church in their teens, gifts young adults can bring, and what the Church should know about young people.

As part of our new series on youth and the Church, starting this week, we look at the crisis facing the Church over its ability to attract – and nurture – a generation of young people, who are dwindling from congregations. Plus, the editor of the Church Times, Paul Handley, talks to Ed Thornton about the redesign of the paper which was revealed this week

This week, Ed Thornton interviews the Bishop of Kensington, Dr Graham Tomlin, about his new book, Bound to be Free: the paradox of freedom. In it, Dr Tomlin discusses the fraught concept of freedom in contemporary culture, finds a fatal flaw at the heart of the secular vision of freedom, and argues that the Christian vision of freedom brings together both personal fulfilment and the health of community life

On this week’s podcast, Hattie Williams sits down to speak to Bishop Sarah Mullally, the next Bishop of London, about a range of topics, including her experience working in senior roles in the NHS; how she will work with people who don’t accept her ministry; clergy well-being; and working with survivors of abuse. If you’re looking for a last-minute gift for a friend or family member, why not take out a gift subscription to the Church Times. www.churchtimes.co.uk/christmas to find out more. The podcast will return on 5 January. We wish all our readers and podcast listeners a very Happy Christmas.

The next Bishop of London will be the Bishop of Crediton, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, Downing Street has announced. At a press conference at St Paul's Cathedral this morning, Bishop Mullally spoke and took questions. Our senior reporter Hattie Williams was there and recorded it for the podcast.

On this week's podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Paul Kerensa, the stand-up comic and comedy writer, about his new book, Hark! The biography of Christmas. They also talk about comedy gigs in churches, comedy and evangelism, and whether preachers should tell jokes in sermons.

On this week’s podcast, Madeleine Davies talks to Tim Thorlby of the Centre for Community and Theology about a new report on Anglo-Catholic churches that are growing. Madeleine also talks about her visit to one of the most affluent parishes in the country, and how it compared to her visit to the most deprived. Plus, editor Paul Handley remembers Bernard Palmer, former editor and proprietor of the Church Times, who died this week.

On this week's podcast, Madeleine Davies reports back on her visit to the C of E's most deprived parish, in Blackpool, and how the Church is bringing hope. Madeleine and Ed talk about what else is in this week's paper, including the royal engagement. Plus, Canon Angus Ritchie, our new Sunday's Readings columnist, talks to editor Paul Handley about preaching and whether the sermon has a future.

On this week's podcast, Terry Waite is interviewed by Sarah Meyrick. He talks about his new book, Solitude: Memories, people and places, and about the five years that he spent in solitary captivity in Lebanon. "When I was in captivity, I decided that this was an opportunity, not a disaster. It was an opportunity to take an inner journey, because any external journey was prohibited. . . The situation reduced my faith to something essential and simple." The interview is also published in the Christmas Books supplement in this week's Church Times.

This week, Ed Thornton and Madeleine Davies talk about why churches might be unwise to ditch children's choirs, given they seem to be one of the best ways of attracting children - and their families - to church. Madeleine reports on a significant new book which calls on Christians to stop "hand-wringing and despairing" about the welfare state. And we look at what else is in this week's paper - including Paddington Bear at St Paul's Cathedral.

This week Madeleine Davies tells us what US Christians really think about Donald Trump one year after his election as president; and we discuss the funding crisis faced by theological colleges. Plus, Ed Thornton speaks to the Revd Dr Philip Lockley about how theological colleges can promote good disagreement.

On this week's podcast, we bring you a fascinating conversation between Neil MacGregor, the former director of the British Museum, and Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields. They talk about Neil MacGregor's landmark new Radio 4 Series, Living with the Gods, which opens today as an exhibition at the British Museum.

This week, Madeleine Davies and Ed Thornton talk about the latest Statics for Mission which show the average C of E church has just three children attending. And they ask whether social media can help stem the decline in church attendance. Plus, Ed Thornton speaks to Mike McGargue, aka "Science Mike" about his new book, Finding God in the Waves, which tells the story of his dramatic loss of faith, and how he found it again through studying science.

This week, we devote the entire podcast to a recording of a lively event at St Mellitus College, in London, that took place this week, on The Parish: Has it had its day? It was hosted by the Church Times and SCM Press, and recorded by Captive North.

This week Madeleine Davies reports back from the Primates' Meeting in Canterbury, and we discuss how religious leaders have responded to the mass shooting in Las Vegas. Plus, Church Times columnist Paul Vallely take us through the highs and lows of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester

This week we discuss whether the upcoming Primates' Meeting will decide to sanction the Scottish Episcopal Church after they endorsed gay marriage, how a Church school in the shadow of Grenfell Tower has stepped up for its community, and what the Anglican priest in Tripoli, Libya, says to the thousands of refugees who come through his church planning to make the desperate journey into Europe. Also, we interview Greg Garrett, an American writer and cultural theologian, on what our fascination with zombie stories says about society and faith.

This month saw 500 people attend the first-ever Festival of Preaching in Oxford, organised by Canterbury Press and the Church Times. As a podcast extra episode, we've uploaded the theologian Paula Gooder's talk at the Festival, on "Nasty surprises in the lectionary".

This week we look at a bold new plan to address the dire state of Religious Education in the UK, and discuss a new book on the African economy endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Plus, Adrian Harris talks to us about the Church of England and digital evangelism.

This week we discuss what the independent review into the Philip North/Bishop of Sheffield fiasco has discovered, and what it means for traditionalists in the Church of England. We also take a look at new research which suggests clergy are on the whole financially and emotionally doing OK, contrary to the headlines. Finally, we interview Sir Hector Sants, who is leading Justin Welby's drive to make the British economy and financial system fairer.

This week's episode comes live (ish) from the final of the Church Times Cricket Cup - can the diocese of London make it five wins in five years, or will the diocese of Lichfield finally end their golden run? We hear from the players, bishops, spectators, reporters, and others about this iconic C of E end-of-summer day out, run by the Church Times since 1950.

This week we go behind the lurid headlines about the Tower Hamlets case of a Christian girl allegedly placed into a conservative Muslim foster family. We also unpack what's going on in the row over St Sepulchre's, a HTB church plant which has angered church musicians, and we look at some of the response to American Evangelicals' Nashville Statement on sexuality. Then, we speak to Eve Poole about "digital obesity" and how Christians should handle children's access to the internet and their phones.

All change this week, as we head off to the Greenbelt festival in Northamptonshire. Hear from festival regulars, first-timers, speakers, and organisers about what makes this celebration of faith, arts, and justice special to them. Normal podcast service resumes on Friday

This week we talk about how church leaders have responded to racist violence in Charlottesville, older people experiencing Messy Church, and how Greenbelt is building bridges with Muslims. Then, we hear from psychotherapist and writer Dr Mark Vernon about what Stoicism and Christianity have in common - and why the Church needs to pay more attention to inner transformation

This week we examine a series of interventions by Bishops concerned about the 'crack cocaine' of betting machines, the impact of Brexit on food prices, and the widening north-south divide. Then, we hear from the Bishop of Liverpool, Paul Bayes, on whether the C of E really has forgotten the poor, as his colleague Philip North suggests

In this week's episode, we talk about Bishop Philip North's hard-hitting talk at New Wine, in which he accused the CofE of being complicit in abandoning the poor. Tim takes us through the Crown Nominations Commission Elections, and we talk about whether it has been captured by Synod groupings. Plus, Bishop Nick Baines reports back from his trip to Sudan with the Archbishop of Canterbury

In this week's episode, we talk about growing discontent among conservative Evangelicals and why the Church is talking about artificial intelligence. Plus, Natalie Williams on her new book Church for the Poor.

This week, we have an extended interview with the Revd Steve Chalke discussing his latest, and controversial, salvo in the battle over how to interpret, or even re-interpret, key Bible passages on gay relationships.

This week we look back at the key debates at the General Synod and examine if the tectonic plates are moving on sexuality issues. Ed also tells us about his afternoon at Arsenal watching evangelist J. John revive the stadium mission. Plus, Andrew Rumsey talks us through his new book on the theology of place and the parish

This week we talk about the consecration of Andy Lines as ACNA's "Missionary Bishop to Europe" and hear about some of the interesting people who have been ordained this Petertide. Plus the Bishop of Jarrow, Mark Bryant, talks to us about Sean Bean's portrayal of a priest in BBC1's Broken

This week, we talk about what the General Synod will be debating when it meets in York next week. Plus, Nell Goddard talks about her new book, Musings of a Clergy Child, with fellow clergy kid, Hattie Williams.

The Scottish theologian Professor John Swinton talks to Ed Thornton about the link between neurological disorders, and human and spiritual identity, in his new book, Becoming friends of time: Disability, Timefullness, and Gentle Discipleship. Professor Swinton won the 2016 Michael Ramsey prize for his book, Dementia: living in the memories of God

On this week's podcast, we talk about how churches have been responding to the Grenfell Tower fire, what people are looking for in the next Bishop of London. Plus, the Revd Rachel Mann talks to Madeleine Davies about her new book, Fierce Imaginings: the Great War, ritual, memory and God.

This week, we take stock of church reactions to the general election result and look at how religious leaders have responded to the London terrorist attack. We also talk to Hattie Williams, in Edinburgh, about the vote of the Scottish Episcopal Church General Synod on same-sex marriage. Plus, Tim Wyatt talks to Justin Brierley on why, after ten years of talking with atheists, he is still a Christian.

This week we hear from the Archbishop of Canterbury about this year's Thy Kingdom Come Pentecost prayer movement, and we discuss what role non-English-speaking congregations play in the C of E. Then, we speak to Andrew Davison about this month's Church Times reading groups book - The Case for Working With Your Hands by Matthew Crawford.

This week, we talk about the reactions to the Manchester bombing, and the role that faith communities have played in bringing people together. We also look at the Church Commissioners' annual results. Plus, Paul Vallely talks to Ed Thornton about why the election is shaping up to be about much more than just Brexit.

This week, we unpack what Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn, and Tim Farron have written exclusively for the Church Times on international aid, and we hear about a possible breakthrough in early Christian history. Plus, Stephen Bullivant discusses his new research on a possible end to church decline and those who tell pollsters their religion is 'none'.

This week we look in depth at the consecration of a conservative Evangelical curate at Jesmond Parish Church in Newcastle and discuss the Archbishops' insistence their election letter was not a shift to the right. Also, Justin Thacker talks to us about his new book on a fresh theological perspective on poverty.

This week we discuss how many (or how few) refugees the Government will now bring into Britain, the Archbishop of Canterbury's trip to the Holy Land, and Pope Francis's strong words in Egypt. Plus, we speak to the Revd Dave Tomlinson about his new book aimed at those on the margins of faith and organised religion

This week we discuss competing claims over whether scores of cathedrals are about to go bust, bombs versus aid in Afghanistan, and what US bishops are doing about gun violence. Plus, Nick Spencer from Theos on how politicians do, or don't do, God.

This week we discuss into the ever-growing phenomenon of HTB church planting and what it means for the rest of the C of E, and look into how faith might come up in the snap general election. We also speak to Church Times cartoonist Dave Walker to find out just how he comes up with his ideas.

This week we speak to the historian Peter Stanford about his new book - published exactly 500 years after the Reformation began - a biography of Martin Luther.

This week we discuss the gas attack in Syria and the United States's retaliation, sweeping changes to religious broadcasting at the BBC, and the Westminster Abbey service of hope after the terror attack. Also, we speak to Joe Ware from Christian Aid to hear how churches can fight back to defend the international aid budget.

This week we discuss the Church's place in Europe now Brexit has finally started, the deepening row over who will be the next Bishop of Llandaff, and we get the inside story on how you get selected for ordination training.

This week we discuss at the latest in the row over Jeffrey John and the new Bishop of Llandaff, how bishops got caught up in Wednesday's terror attack in Parliament, and where animals fit into the Kingdom of God. Then, we speak with the poet and priest Malcolm Guite about his new book exploring the faith of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.