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 B...
Jun 17, 2021•30 min
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 q...
Jun 10, 2021•18 min
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 En...
Jun 04, 2021•25 min
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...
May 28, 2021•45 min
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, ...
May 21, 2021•29 min
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 t...
May 13, 2021•24 min
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 cele...
May 07, 2021•20 min
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...
Apr 30, 2021•38 min
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 thro...
Apr 22, 2021•46 min
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 ...
Apr 15, 2021•17 min
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 ...
Apr 09, 2021•49 min
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 speaki...
Apr 01, 2021•22 min
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...
Mar 26, 2021•33 min
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 Durh...
Mar 19, 2021•30 min
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 ...
Mar 12, 2021•27 min
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 fina...
Mar 05, 2021•20 min
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 ...
Feb 25, 2021•46 min
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 inte...
Feb 18, 2021•17 min
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...
Feb 11, 2021•23 min
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 wha...
Feb 04, 2021•29 min
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 bes...
Jan 28, 2021•13 min
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 whic...
Jan 21, 2021•23 min
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...
Jan 14, 2021•22 min
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 b...
Jan 07, 2021•28 min
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 L...
Dec 31, 2020•28 min
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//malcolm...
Dec 18, 2020•33 min
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...
Dec 10, 2020•34 min
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 peopl...
Dec 03, 2020•35 min
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 ...
Nov 26, 2020•50 min
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 th...
Nov 20, 2020•20 min
