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,...
Jan 12, 2024•15 min
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 ...
Jan 04, 2024•24 min
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 ...
Dec 08, 2023•15 min
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 aut...
Nov 30, 2023•29 min
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, wh...
Nov 24, 2023•18 min
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'...
Nov 17, 2023•18 min
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 famil...
Nov 10, 2023•19 min
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 l...
Nov 02, 2023•27 min
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 Rums...
Oct 19, 2023•35 min
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...
Oct 12, 2023•29 min
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...
Oct 05, 2023•29 min
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, cu...
Sep 28, 2023•35 min
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 r...
Sep 08, 2023•25 min
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 writin...
Aug 31, 2023•33 min
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, ...
Aug 25, 2023•22 min
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, Ru...
Aug 10, 2023•50 min
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...
Aug 03, 2023•32 min
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 a...
Jul 21, 2023•17 min
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 c...
Jul 11, 2023•23 min
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, seekin...
Jun 30, 2023•53 min
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 M...
Jun 23, 2023•44 min
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 ...
Jun 15, 2023•22 min
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 A...
Jun 13, 2023•18 min
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 jour...
Jun 01, 2023•29 min
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...
May 19, 2023•30 min
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 un...
May 11, 2023•20 min
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 shephe...
May 04, 2023•30 min
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 ...
Apr 28, 2023•40 min
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 th...
Apr 21, 2023•33 min
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 F...
Apr 13, 2023•44 min
