The Church Times Podcast

This week, the editor, Sarah Meyrick, is joined by senior writer Madeleine Davies and news reporter Francis Martin to discuss a momentous and turbulent week for the Church of England: the publication of the Makin review into the abuse carried out by John Smyth, which resulted, five days later, in the Archbishop of Canterbury announcing his resignation.

They talk about the findings of the Makin review, the significance of the Archbishop's announcement and what it will mean for safeguarding in the Church, how people are responding in parishes and wider society, and what happens next. The discussion also touches on what the legacy of Archbishop Welby's archiepiscopate might be.

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Photo credit: Alamy

On the podcast this week, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, talks about his new book, Praying By Heart: The Lord’s Prayer for everyone.

The book takes readers through the Lord’s Prayer phrase by phrase, exploring its meaning and significance for us today. The prayer, he writes, is a “declaration of intent”, which should come with a health warning — ‘don’t say this prayer if you are not prepared to be changed.”

An extract from the book is published in this week’s Church Times.

Praying By Heart is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £14.99 (Church Times Bookshop £11.99); 978-1-3998-0530-8. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781399805308/praying-by-heart-the-lords-prayer-for-everyone?vc=CT508

Archbishop Cottrell will be talking about the book at the next Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which takes place in Winchester from 28 February to 2 March. Find out more and book tickets at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk

Picture credit: Ravage Productions

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Orbital by Samantha Harvey, shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, the Revd Gerry Lynch, who has written about the book in this week’s Church Times, discusses it with Ed Thornton. Read the essay here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/1-november/books-arts/book-club/book-club-orbital-by-samantha-harvey

Orbital is published by Vintage at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-5299-2293-6. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781529922936/orbital?vc=CT401

Orbital is a series of meditations by six fictional astronauts on the International Space Station. Travelling at an altitude of 250 miles above sea level, and orbiting the Earth 16 times a day, the book covers the life of the crew over a 24-hour period. Observations by the astronauts as they look down wistfully on the Earth are ones mixed with wonder and fear. Crossing war zones and impenetrable borders, and tracking a menacing typhoon, the book makes for uncomfortable viewing. Ultimately, Orbital is a book of hope, reaffirming in the reader a sense of insignificance in the presence of a larger, more magnificent realm.

The Revd Gerry Lynch is Rector of the Wellsprings Benefice, in the diocese of Salisbury.

Ed Thornton is Assistant Editor of the Church Times.

The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature, which is taking place in Winchester from 28 February to 2 March. Find information about the programme and how to buy tickets here.

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

This week, Rupert Shortt is interviewed about his latest book, The Eclipse of Christianity: And why it matters (Comment, 13 September, Books, 20 September).

The wide-ranging book reports on the unsettling consequences of secularisation, but also offers a robust defence of the intellectual coherence of Christian belief and argues that Europe’s historic faith remains critical to the survival of a humane culture.

In a review of the book in the Church Times, John Saxbee writes: “It remains to be seen just how close to total any eclipse of Christianity might be, but eclipses are by their very nature transitory, and Shortt, notwithstanding his painfully honest analysis, provides a halo of hope sufficient to confound the doubters and re-energise the faithful.”

Rupert Shortt is a research associate at the Von Hügel Institute for Critical Catholic Inquiry at the University of Cambridge, and was an editor at the Times Literary Supplement from 2000 until 2020. His previous books include The Hardest Problem (Books, 16 September 2022), Outgrowing Dawkins: God for grown-ups (Podcast, 29 November 2019), Does Religion Do More Harm Than Good? (Podcast, 29 March 2019), and Rowan's Rule: The biography of the Archbishop (2014).

The Eclipse of Christianity is published by Hodder at £25 (Church Times Bookshop £20). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781399802741/the-eclipse-of-christianity?vc=CT011

He will be speaking about the book at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, to be held in Winchester from 28 February to 2 March 2025. 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 www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The Bell by Iris Murdoch is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, the Revd Jeremy Davies, retired Canon Precentor of Salisbury Cathedral, who has a long and abiding interest in the works of Iris Murdoch, discusses the book with Francis Martin, who has written about the book in this week’s Church Times.

Published in 1958, The Bell is hailed as a great work of philosophical and psychological fiction. The story centres on a group of characters, all with complex problems, who seek refuge in a lay religious community in rural Gloucestershire. Their community sits alongside a medieval abbey inhabited by Benedictine nuns. As the two neighbouring communities await the arrival of a new replacement bell for the medieval bell tower, the story takes an unexpected turn when the missing bell is found and retrieved from the lake near by.

The Bell is published by Vintage Classics at £10.99 (Church Times Bookshop £9.89); 978-0-09-947048-9. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780099470489/bell?vc=CT804

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

The Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, gave the plenary lecture at the Church Times Festival of Preaching this month in Great St Mary’s, Cambridge (Features, 20 September).

In the lecture, she spoke about the weariness she has detected in the Church and in society at large. She also explained why she worries, for practical and theological reasons, about the C of E’s drive to increase in size and numbers.

“The constant mantra that we must grow, indeed that we are going to grow if we follow the strategy, the deliberate setting of targets to increase the number of worshippers, the judging of a church’s success according to its size — all this is putting undue pressure on clergy who are overstretched and congregations whose morale is low. . .

“We cannot and must not continue placing unreasonable and unrealistic expectations of growth in numbers on the shoulders of our clergy. If growth is to happen, it will be God’s doing.”

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, Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch is interviewed by Paul Handley about his new book Lower Than the Angels: A history of sex and Christianity.

In a review of the book in this week’s Church Times, Penelope Cowell Doe writes that “one of his main concerns . . . is to show that the Church has never been univocal in speaking about sex, and that there is not one unbroken line in its approach to marriage and celibacy. He writes: ‘there is no such thing as a single Christian theology of sex. There is a plethora of Christian theologies of sex.’”

Lower Than the Angels is published by Allen Lane at £35 (Church Times Bookshop special price £28). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780241400937/lower-than-the-angels?vc=CT220

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

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

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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