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 theologica…

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 s…

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.…

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-clubIn her candid memoir, Sarah Tarlow excavates her memory to piece toget…

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 …

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Caroline Chartres, who has written this month’s Book Club reflection on the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. Maggie O’Farrell transports the reader to Renaissance Italy in her latest historical novel The Marriage Po…

Can organs (and organists), choirs, instrumental music groups, and praise bands exist in harmony? This question was considered by an expert panel at the first Church Times Festival of Faith and Music in York (News, 3 May), held in partnership with the Royal School of Church Music.The panellists, who all have experience of traditional and contempora…

On the podcast this week, the Revd Dr Isabelle Hamley is interviewed about Struggling with God: Mental health and Christian spirituality, which she co-wrote with C. H. Cook and John Swinton. The book is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. She is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick.Anne Holmes has written this month’s book club essay …

On the podcast this week, the Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, is interviewed by Francis Martin about her visit this month to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.Since the “awful atrocities” committed by Hamas on 7 October and the subsequent “horrors of the war in Gaza”, she said, “there has been an absence of a focus on the West …

This week’s episode is brought to you from Edinburgh, and features a conversation with the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Most Revd Mark Strange. It was recorded on Saturday, 15 June, at the conclusion of the Church’s General Synod meeting.The Primus spoke about the General Election campaign and Christians’ involvement in politics; th…

Stewart McCulloch joined Christians Against Poverty (CAP) at the start of the year as its new chief executive. He previously led the charity Stewardship.CAP’s latest report says that 46 per cent of its clients have considered taking their own life as a way out of their debt, and nine out of ten have reported having sleepless nights from financial a…

The best-selling novelist Karen Powell is the guest on this month’s Book Club Podcast, where Sarah Meyrick interviews her about Fifteen Wild Decembers, which is this month’s choice.Michael Wheeler has written an essay about the book in the 7 June edition of the Church Times.Fifteen Wild Decembers is a re-imagining of the life of Emily Brontë set ag…

On the podcast this week, Elizabeth Oldfield talks about her new book, Fully Alive: Tending to the soul in turbulent times. An extract from the book is published in the 24 May edition of the Church Times.Elizabeth is a journalist, public intellectual, and the host of the podcast The Sacred, which explores the deep values of a range of guests. Until…

On this week’s podcast, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, is interviewed by Francis Martin about her recent trip to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. The aim of the trip was to show solidarity with the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and Christians in the region, and to understand more about the conflict and its impact on the di…

On the podcast this week, the Archbishop of York speaks about “Tuning Forks and Orchestras: Music and the mission of God.” The talk was given at the first Church Times Festival of Faith and Music in York Minster late last month (News, 3 May). It was held in partnership with the Royal School of Church Music.“The universe and all creation are held to…

On the podcast this week, Elizabeth Fremantle is interviewed about her historical novel Disobedient, which is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. She is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick.Natalie K. Watson has written this month’s book club essay about Disobedient.Disobedient is an enthralling historical novel that retells the turbu…

On the podcast this week, Fr Alex Frost — parish priest, best-selling author, and host of The God Cast — talks to Madeleine Davies about the Church of England’s problems connecting with people from working-class settings.Fr Alex has written a comment article in this week’s Church Times which argues that the C of E needs to remove barriers that make…

The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Emily Rhodes, who has written this month’s Book Club essay about the book, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick. The Beginning of Spring is a historical novel set in Moscow a few years before the Russian Revolution as pol…

On the podcast this week, the Rector of St Andrew’s, Ramallah, the Revd Fadi Diab, is interviewed by Francis Martin.Fr Diab was in the UK last week, hosted by Friends of the Holy Land, an ecumenical organisation whose volunteer committee he chairs (News, 22 March). During the visit, he met the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, Fr Diab says, “stands fi…

On the podcast this week, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson talks about her new book, Reading Genesis, which has been described by Rowan Williams as “a work of exceptional wisdom and imagination”.Marilynne Robinson is in conversation with Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, a Visiting Scholar at Sarum College in Salisbury…

On the podcast this week, Mark Oakley reflects on “Love (III)” by George Herbert. This episode was first posted last year as part of the Church Times Poetry Podcast for Lent series.“Over my years of reading Herbert, I have come to see him as the poet who most expresses our relationship with God as a friendship,” Mark says. “Friendship requires cour…

Before My Actual Heart Breaks by Tish Delaney is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Tish Delaney talks to Sarah Meyrick, who has written this month’s Book Club essay about the book.Before My Actual Heart Breaks is published by Cornerstone at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-1-78609-098-0. https://c…

On this episode of the podcast, Debbie and Stephanie Hayton talk to Sarah Meyrick. Originally a heterosexual couple, they met as students, trained as teachers, got married, and had three children. When he was in his forties, David (as he was then called) told Stephanie that he had been struggling all his life with the longing to be a woman. After a…

Francis Martin, a reporter for the Church Times, was travelling last week with the Archbishop of Canterbury in Ukraine.On the final day of the trip, Francis interviewed Archbishop Welby, asking about what he had hoped to achieve, the differences he had noticed from his previous visit in 2022, and about tensions between the Orthodox Churches in Ukra…

Francis Martin, a reporter for the Church Times, has been travelling this week with the Archbishop of Canterbury in Ukraine. During the trip, Francis interviewed Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zoria), a prominent figure Ukraine’s independent Orthodox Church (OCU), which is led by Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko) and is independent of the Moscow Patriarchate…

The Second Sleep by Robert Harris is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, Susan Gray, who has written this month’s Book Club essay, is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick.Robert Harris’s dystopian thriller is set in the 15th century, but, although medieval in tone and atmosphere, the date is misleading, as it…

For the podcast this week, Sarah Meyrick travelled to York to talk to the Canon Precenter of York Minster, the Revd Dr Victoria Johnson, and the director of the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM), Hugh Morris, about the importance of church music.The Church Times and the RSCM have together launched a new event, the Festival of Faith and Music, whi…

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 chi…

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 unbor…

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 …

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 clo…

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…

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 edito…

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 mi…

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 fr…

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…

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…

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 …

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 againJustin presented the popular radio show and podcast Unbelievable? for more than a decade, which included debates with many leading figures in the New Atheism mov…

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 St…

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 Emm…

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…

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 train…

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 clari…

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 …

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 …

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,…