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...
Sep 23, 2022•10 min
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 covera...
Sep 16, 2022•25 min
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 Kin...
Sep 01, 2022•34 min
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). “Th...
Aug 26, 2022•17 min
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...
Aug 04, 2022•38 min
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 ...
Jul 29, 2022•26 min
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 an...
Jul 21, 2022•33 min
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-y...
Jul 07, 2022•25 min
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 Q...
Jun 30, 2022•37 min
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...
Jun 24, 2022•22 min
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....
Jun 16, 2022•23 min
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 th...
Jun 11, 2022•16 min
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,...
Jun 02, 2022•30 min
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...
May 26, 2022•30 min
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 t...
May 19, 2022•23 min
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 cas...
May 13, 2022•30 min
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 sibl...
May 05, 2022•33 min
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 T...
Apr 28, 2022•22 min
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 gui...
Apr 21, 2022•40 min
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...
Apr 14, 2022•12 min
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 a...
Apr 07, 2022•20 min
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, directo...
Mar 31, 2022•50 min
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 publis...
Mar 24, 2022•27 min
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 d...
Mar 18, 2022•28 min
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 an...
Mar 11, 2022•21 min
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 ...
Mar 03, 2022•31 min
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...
Feb 25, 2022•16 min
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, ...
Feb 17, 2022•17 min
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 ...
Feb 10, 2022•24 min
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 (Boo...
Feb 03, 2022•7 min
