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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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