The Church Times Podcast

John Harris, the Guardian columnist and host of its Politics Weekly UK podcast, is best known for his political and music journalism. His new book, Maybe I’m Amazed: A story of love and connection in ten songs, is a personal story about life with his autistic son James and the life-changing effect of his son’s intense connection with popular music. On the podcast this week, he talks to Sarah Meyrick, editor of the Church Times, about the book. Harris, who calls himself a “devout agnostic”, also speaks about his son’s love of playing organs when they visit churches during country walks. Maybe I’m Amazed is published by John Murray at £16.99 (Church Times Bookshop £15.29). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781399814034/maybe-im-amazed?vc=CT530 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, Francis Spufford discusses his latest novel, Cahokia Jazz, with the Dean of Southwark, the Very Revd Dr Mark Oakley. The conversation was recorded at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which was held in Winchester in March (Features, 7 March). Set in an alternative America in the 1920s, Cahokia Jazz is “a detective novel with noir tendencies” which is “as inventive and unpredictable in its setting as it is in its thrilling plot”, Dr Oakley wrote in a review in the Church Times. Cahokia Jazz is available in paperback from the Church House Bookshop. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780571336883/cahokia-jazz Francis Spufford’s first novel, Golden Hill, won the Costa First Novel Award 2016; his second novel, Light Perpetual was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize. He has also written five highly praised works of non-fiction, including Unapologetic: Why, despite everything Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense, which was shortlisted for the 2016 Michael Ramsey Prize. Picture credit: Harvey Mills Find out about forthcoming Church Times events at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events 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 names of most of those who will help to decide the next Archbishop of Canterbury were announced this week: five representatives of the global Anglican Communion, along with those selected from among the central members elected by the General Synod for a five-year term. Previously, the Canterbury Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) has had only one representative of the Anglican Communion, but this was increased to five after a Synod vote in 2022. On the podcast this week, the editor, Sarah Meyrick, and staff writer, Francis Martin, talk about the composition of the Canterbury CNC: who the members are and how their views might influence the kind of person who is appointed. Will church tradition be a consideration? How likely is it that CNC members will vote for a woman to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury? And how does this protracted process compare to the election of a new pope? Photo credit: Neil Turner/Lambeth Palace 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 this episode, Paul Vallely, a columnist for the Church Times, talks about the papacy of Pope Francis and what his legacy might be. Pope Francis adopted “a pastoral approach”, he says, “not a dogmatic approach. “He thought that people, were the centre of the gospel, and he thought that mercy was more important than dogma. He didn’t really change a lot of Catholic teaching, in the sense that he saw dogma as the kind of ideal to which we all aspire. He knew we weren’t perfect or ideal: we were all on a journey and starting very often in a difficult place. He wanted to be there at the start of the journey to accompany people. He wasn’t a liberal: he was a pastor.” Paul Vallely has also written in the Church Times this week about Pope Francis, after news of his death on Easter Monday, aged 88. Read the article here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/25-april/comment/columnists/paul-vallely-pope-francis-was-pastor-to-the-world Paul Vallely’s book, Untying the Knots: The struggle for the soul of Catholicism, is published by Bloomsbury. 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

Eighty years ago, on 9 April 1945, the Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed in Flossenburg. Ethics was the final book that he wrote before his arrest by the Nazis. Pages of it were on his desk the day he was taken away and it remained unfinished. Based on careful reconstruction of the manuscripts, freshly and expertly translated and annotated, this crown jewel of Bonhoeffer’s body of work is the culmination of his theological and personal odyssey. A repackaged edition of Ethics, published by SCM Press, includes a foreword by the Revd Dr Sam Wells. On the podcast this week, to mark the anniversary, Dr Wells reads the foreword. "Perhaps the greatest fascination of the book lies in the insight it gives to the soul of the author in the midst of the German crisis and the war”, he says. Dr Wells is the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, in London. https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334065876/ethics-repackaged-edition 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 this episode, Chine McDonald speaks about the themes of her new book, Unmaking Mary: Shattering the myth of perfect motherhood (Hodder & Stoughton). The book is available to buy at the Church Times Bookshop here: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781399814638/unmaking-mary?vc=CT828 The talk was given earlier this month at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. It was chaired by Dr Eve Poole. In this week’s Church Times, Chine explores depictions of Mary the mother, meek and mild. Read her article here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/28-march/features/features/how-portrayals-of-mary-in-art-influence-perceptions-of-motherhood Chine McDonald is director of Theos. Her previous books include God is Not a White Man: And other revelations (Podcast, 28 May 2021, Books, 11 June 2021). https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Picture credit: Harvey Mills Save the date: Festival of Preaching one day event, 13 September 2025, Southwark Cathedral. Further details tbc at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events 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, Mark Oakley reflects on “Paternoster” by Jen Hadfield. This episode was first broadcast in 2023 as part of the Church Times Poetry Podcast for Lent series. “Paternoster” is published in Jen Hadfield’s collection Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe Books, 2008), which won the T.S. Eliot Prize. We are grateful to Bloodaxe Books for giving permission to play a recording of Jen Hadfield reading the poem. https://www.bloodaxebooks.com The material in this podcast is taken from Mark Oakley’s book The Splash of Words (Canterbury Press), winner of the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. Artwork by Emily Noyce 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

In this episode, Edward Stourton, the veteran journalist and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme, examines how truth can survive in a digital age, and explains why truth-telling still matters. He was delivering the Sir Tony Baldry Lecture in Winchester Cathedral on 28 February, as part of the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature (Features, 7 March). https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk “Technology can create challenges as well as opportunities,” he says. “Today’s digital landscape offers us an abundance — a superabundance — of sources for information, something unimaginable in the 1940s, and, indeed, in the three-television-channel world I joined in the 1970s. If we’re offered several versions of the truth, it is only natural to prefer the version which best fits our views and prejudices, and that’s a real challenge facing us in what’s sometimes called the mainstream media. So, how do we meet that challenge?” 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 this episode, the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, is interviewed about his new booklet, Can We Imagine a Future Together? Intercultural lessons for living in love and faith, in which he attempts to chart a way forward for the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process. Bishop Snow is the lead bishop on LLF. “The Church of England is in a season of discernment as it seeks a way to honour and accommodate differing theological and pastoral responses to Living in Love and Faith and to find a way to remain united despite sometimes profound disagreement,” the booklet's description says. “Martyn Snow offers further practical resources for this season of listening, prayer, patience and kindness. “Drawing on his experiences of working in the UK’s most culturally diverse diocese to explore how best to live together well across difference, such that all church members — especially those who have been historically marginalised — flourish, he finds helpful models in the in the field of interculturalism and in the concept of gift exchange. These models are expressed in generous giving, radical receptivity and transformative thanksgiving — all of which can contribute positively to today’s pressing questions.” Can We Imagine a Future Together? is published by Church House Publishing and is available to buy at https://www.chpublishing.co.uk/books/9781781405130/can-we-imagine-a-future-together. Bishop Snow is interviewed by Francis Martin, Staff Writer for the Church Times. 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

Staff writer Francis Martin spent all of last week in the press gallery of Church House, Westminster, reporting on the latest meeting of the General Synod. He reports back to the editor, Sarah Meyrick, about some of the most significant debates and votes, including on the future of safeguarding and proposed changes to the Crown Nominations Commission. Francis was also out and about talking to Synod members. Watch a video of some of the interviews here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/14-february/audio-video/video/watch-church-times-reports-from-the-general-synod-in-london Read coverage of the Synod on our website: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/topics/general-synod Synod digest will be published next week (28 February issue) 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

In 2023, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York asked Professor Alexis Jay to develop proposals for a fully independent structure to provide scrutiny of safeguarding in the Church of England. Her report, published the following year, concluded that not only scrutiny, but operational safeguarding, should be independent, necessitating the creation of two separate charities. But while there is widespread demand for action to prevent further failings, opinion on taking up Professor Jay’s recommendations remains divided. Next week, members of the General Synod will gather again to discuss the way forward. The task before them is a weighty one, with the debate taking place against a backdrop of widespread horror at the Church’s record to date. On Wednesday (5 February), the Church Times hosted a webinar to discuss the right way forward, in response to Professor Jay’s recommendations. This podcast features contributions from the panel below. A video of the full webinar, including the panel’s discussion and responses to questions, will be available soon. Panel Jane Chevous, co-founder, Survivors Voices Colin Perkins, diocesan safeguarding adviser, diocese of Chichester David Greenwood, Switalskis Solicitors Jim Gamble, INEQE Safeguarding Group Chaired by Madeleine Davies of the Church Times New to us? We are currently offering a £5 digital subscription, giving you full access to our website and archive, for 2 months. This best-ever value subscription offer is available until 14 February, so subscribe now to avoid missing out. https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe

The Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, was in Jerusalem last week when the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal was agreed. Shortly after returning from the Holy Land, she spoke to Francis Martin about the reaction to the deal on the ground; the prospects for long-term peace in the region; and more widely about the visit, which included meeting Layan Nasir, a young Anglican woman from Birzeit who was released in December, after eight months in “administrative detention”. “As a Christian and as a person of prayer, I have to continue to hope that people of peace, people who want to see reconciliation, people who believe in justice, will find a will and a way to work together eventually to lead to a peaceful solution,” she said. The interview was recorded on Sunday (19 January). Picture: Dr Francis-Dehqani with the Archbishop in Jerusalem, Dr Hosam Naoum. Credit: Diocese of Chelmsford Limited-time digital subscription offer (until 24 January): £10 for 2 Months Digital edition PLUS 2 month free app subscription to Reflections for Daily Prayer: www.churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe

This week’s podcast brings a sermon preached by Barbara Brown Taylor at the 2024 Festival of Preaching in Cambridge last September (Features, 20 September 2024). She considers how the Church can bear witness to good news “in a world so full of the other kind”, such as global warfare and climate change, political divisions and churches closing, the loneliness epidemic, and systemic racism. Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest and best-stelling author, whose books include Holy Envy (Books, 14 June 2019) and Always a Guest (Books, 18 December 2020). The Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature runs from Friday 28 February to Sunday 2 March. For more details and to book tickets, visit https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk Photo credit: Tom Perkins Limited-time digital subscription offer (until 24 January): £10 for 2 Months Digital edition PLUS 2 month free app subscription to Reflections for Daily Prayer: www.churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe

On the podcast this week, Sarah Meyrick introduces an exciting new era for the Church Times, including fresh content and contributors, and the return to a news front-page, reflecting our proud heritage as an independent newspaper. She tells Associate Editor Ed Thornton more about the thinking behind the changes. Limited-time digital subscription offer: £10 for 2 Months Digital edition PLUS 2 month free app subscription to Reflections for Daily Prayer: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/subscribe

On the podcast this week, a panel of experts discuss the question: Does the future have a Church? In an increasingly unstable and dark world, will people return to or at least reconsider belief, or are we continuing to hear the ‘melancholy, long, withdrawing roar’ of faith? The discussion was recorded in London on 26 November at the 2024 Theos Annual Lecture. The panelists were: Daisy Scalchi, Head of Religion and Ethics, BBC Television Justin Brierley, broadcaster, author, and speaker Madeleine Davies, senior writer for the Church Times Bishop Mike Royal, General Secretary of Churches Together in England Mary Harrington, writer and author of Feminism Against Progress The discussion was chaired by Nick Spencer, Senior Fellow at Theos. The director of Theos, Chine McDonald, introduced and closed the event. https://www.theosthinktank.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

On this episode of the podcast, the Revd Michael Coren is intereviewed about his memoir, Heaping Coals: From media firebrand to Anglican Priest. The book charts how he went from an English working-class family to become a high-profile Roman Catholic media personality in Canada, and how he ended up being ordained priest in the Anglican Church of Canada. An extract from the book was published in the 29 November edition of the Church Times: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/29-november/features/features/michael-coren-media-firebrand-to-anglican-priest Heaping Coals is published by Dundurn at £10.99 (Church Times Bookshop £9.89) 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 this edition of the podcast, Ian Collins is interviewed about his book Blythe Spirit: The remarkable life of Ronald Blythe. Ronald Blythe, who died, aged 100, in January last year was best known for his 1969 account of village life, Akenfield, and to Church Times readers as the author of the weekly “Word from Wormingford” column, which ran for 24 years from 1993. Collins was a close friend of Blythe's for more than three decades. Interview by the Revd Malcolm Doney, a writer, broadcaster, and Anglican priest, who lives in Suffolk. Blythe Spirit is published by John Murray £25 (Church Times Bookshop £20). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781399819060/blythe-spirit/?vc=CT229 Read a review by Paul Handley here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/29-november/books-arts/book-reviews/book-review-blythe-spirit-the-remarkable-life-of-ronald-blythe-by-ian-collins Ian Collins will be speaking at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which takes place from 28 February to 2 March in Winchester. Find out more about the programme and buy tickets at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk

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. 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 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 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

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