Irreverend: Faith and Current Affairs

In this week's episode, we celebrate our newly acquired number one Christian podcast in the UK status and attempt to answer some frequently asked questions and comments: What should I do if I still want to go to church and haven't got one? And the often repeated story of people either being literally excluded from churches through church closure or those who have been ostracized by the extreme, unfriendly and unwelcoming behaviour of congregations and ministers. We try to make some sense of this. As the spectre of vaccine passports for society in general and churches in particular looms ever larger, we review some comments made by the vaccine minister this week about the subject as it pertains to churches and talk about the implications. And for a bit of light relief, we consider the possibility of a joint application for the £90,000 a year post of Chief of Staff to the Archbishop of York.Thanks so much for listening and a special thanks and welcome to all of our new Irreverend friends this week. If you would like to contribute to Irreverend: Faith and Current Affairs, please consider joining our Patreon community at www.patreon.com/irreverend! As always please contact us for any suggestions, criticisms, questions, excoriations at irreverendpod@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod and visit our Youtube page!​​​​ Please also rate and review us on iTunes to help us ascend the algorithm.If you are looking for an open church in England, please visit https://uklockdownchurches.wordpress.com​ where there is a list available with some basic information. Alternatively if you have an open church and would like to list it, you are welcome to do so there.Support the show

After the customary round of hellos, we celebrate the Church's victory in Scotland in which the unconstitutional banning of services has been overturned in the courts. We move from there to assess a document given to us by a listener that comes from the CofE Bath and Wells diocese, in which an assessment is made of the Church's performance in the pandemic and what should be taken forward from it into the future. Alongside this we consider Douglas Murray's article on the findings of the Archbishop's antiracism taskforce, which was reported on in The Spectator this week. We assess the general situation after a year of lockdown and talk briefly about the enormous protest in London on Saturday and the highly misleading press coverage. Finally, our email of the week is from a listener who is a Buddhism. Apparently Buddhism hasn't come out of this crisis any better than Christianity!Thanks for listening. As always please contact us for any suggestions, criticisms, questions, excoriations at irreverendpod@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod and find our YouTube page here​. Please also rate and review us on iTunes to help us ascend the algorithm.If you are looking for an open church in England, please visit https://uklockdownchurches.wordpress.com/ where there is a list available with some basic information. Alternatively if you have an open church and would like to list it, you are welcome to do so there.Support the show

This week's episode sees Rev. Daniel, Tom and Jamie discuss a recent meeting between evangelical church leaders and the government which appears to indicate that social distancing and mask usage in churches will continue after June 21st . We also have an extensive discussion about the recent pausing of the usage of the AstraZeneca vaccine in many countries around the world. We feature our friend James Blott's excellent piece on why he is not having the vaccine. And we discuss the fallout from the tragic murder of Sarah Everard including the seemingly absurd suggestion that all men should face a curfew after 6pm and a review of the government's ongoing attempt to confiscate the power to protest through new legislation.Thanks for watching. As always please contact us for any suggestions, criticisms, questions, excoriations at irreverendpod@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod and find our YouTube page here​. Please also rate and review us on iTunes to help us ascend the algorithm.If you are looking for an open church in England, please visit https://uklockdownchurches.wordpress.com/ where there is a list available with some basic information. Alternatively if you have an open church and would like to list it, you are welcome to do so there.Support the show

In this episode, we welcome to the pod, the Reverend Phill Sacre all the way from sunny Clacton-on-Sea. We discuss the latest events such as the cultural significance of the Meghan Markle, Oprah Winfrey debacle and we take into consideration Phill's optimistic predictions around the breakdown of the lockdown narrative, the importance of the working class to this problem, and the end of the credibility of the so-called experts. We hope he's right! For Phill's blogs on experts and his response to our discussion, see here and here. And for Phill's Understand the Bible website, see here.Please read and sign the petition 'Do not roll out vaccine passports': https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/569957Thanks for listening. As always please contact us for any suggestions, criticisms, questions, excoriations at irreverendpod@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod and find our YouTube page to watch the conversations!​ Please also rate and review us on iTunes to help us ascend the algorithm.If you are looking for an open church in England, please visit https://uklockdownchurches.wordpress.com/ where there is a list available with some basic information. Alternatively if you have an open church and would like to list it, you are welcome to do so there.Support the show

In this episode Revs Tom, Jamie and Daniel talk about the relationship between lockdowns, experts, Brexit and the Iraq War using an insightful Article by Phil Sacre, Will Lockdowns be the End of Experts? We also talk about the gloomy prospect of coerced vaccination. We note endorsements that the vaccine has received from the Queen and from high profile church leaders. A group of the latter released a video in which they urge people to have the vaccine in an effort to curb what they see as "misinformation".Please read and sign the petition Do not roll out vaccine passports.Thanks for listening. As always please contact us for any suggestions, criticisms, questions, excoriations at irreverendpod@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod and subscribe to us on YouTube! Please also rate and review us on iTunes to help us ascend the algorithm.If you are looking for an open church in England, please visit www.uklockdownchurches.wordpress.com where there is a list available with some basic information. Alternatively if you have an open church and would like to list it, you are welcome to do so there.Support the show

Jamie and Daniel French take the reins for this special 20th edition of Irreverend! We review the recent governmental unveiling of a "roadmap" out of lockdown and the four tests that must be met if even this glacially paced timetable is to be met. We get our rant on about the conservative press who are now passionately advocating for a two-tier society in which vaccination passports are used to prove that you belong to the right group.We chat about the recent racial abuse that Calvin Robinson has received from the hard left, including a race relations charity called The Race Trust. We ask when the Church of England will issue a statement defending one of their own from racist abuse as they did when Jarel Robinson Brown received ostensibly similar treatment.We also talk about the shock story of the week, which is that Prince Charles visited his sick, 99 year old father in hospital. People are outraged apparently, but it probably says more about them than anything else.Email of the week comes from Rosemary who has rewritten 1 Corinthians 13 for the COVID-era. The text of her work is below these show notes for anyone who would like them.Thanks for listening. As always please contact us for any suggestions, criticisms, questions, excoriations at irreverendpod@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod and/or on our YouTube page! Please also rate and review us on iTunes to help us ascend the algorithm.If you are looking for an open church in England, please visit www.uklockdownchurches.wordpress.com where there is a list available with some basic information. Alternatively if you have an open church and would like to list it, you are welcome to do so there.1 Corinthians 13 (COVID rewrite)Though I speak with the tongues of virologists and epidemiologists, and have not Covid, I have become as a corrupted file, or an unconvincing symbol.And though I have the gift of modelling, and a tenured post at Imperial College, and though I have all algorithms, so that I can move mountains of data, and have not Covid, I am nothing.And though I bestow all my figures to terrify the masses, and though I allow my results to be turned around, and have not Covid, it profiteth me nothing.Covid lasteth long, and is a bind; Covid pardoneth not; Covid transmitteth itself, its statistics are puffed up, it perpetuateth itself nosocomially, seeketh out the old, is easily contracted, causeth much evil, rejoiceth not in compassion, but perverteth the truth; distorteth all things, devalueth all things, enslaveth all things, crusheth all things.Treatment for Covid never faileth; but whether there be cancer screening, it shall be suspended; whether there be heart problems, they shall be misdiagnosed; whether there be co-morbidities, they shall vanish away from the death certificate.For we bully in part, and we terrify in part. But when that which is totalitarian is come, that which is in part shall be done away.When I was a human being, I spake as a human being, I understood as a human being, l thought as a human being; but when I became a terrified zombie, I put away human things.For now I breathe through a mask, hardly, but then with a deleted face; now I snitch in part, but then shall I snitch even as I am snitched on.And now abideth flu, pneumonia, and Covid, these three; but the greatest of these is Covid. Support the show

In this episode, Revs Tom and Jamie review the week's news, most notably the government's new plan to decrease the amount of Coronavirus cases to less than 1000 before the lockdown is eased. Along the way, we briefly review the Talk Radio Hitchens vs. Hodges debate, Jamie shares his own philosophical argument against lockdowns and we review some interesting listener feedback, including another instalment of one our listener's re-write of the New Testament for the age of the religion of Covidianism.Thanks for listening. As always please contact us for any suggestions, criticisms, questions, excoriations at irreverendpod@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod and/or on our YouTube page! Please also rate and review us on iTunes to help us ascend the algorithm.If you are looking for an open church in England, please visit www.uklockdownchurches.wordpress.com where there is a list available with some basic information. Alternatively if you have an open church and would like to list it, you are welcome to do so there.Support the show

Revs Tom and James are joined this week once again by the inimitable Rev Daniel French. Topics for discussion include: a new era of prohibitionism as pubs may be allowed to reopen but without any alcohol - we ask, "Is it worth going to one in that case?"; the omni-competent and benevolent Matt Hancock threatens to throw citizens in jail for ten years unless they tell him where they've been on their hols, obviously a proportionate and humane measure in these uncertain times; clergyman Jarel Robinson-Brown said this week that he didn't want to join in a national clap for Sir Captain Tom Moore, involving the Church of England authorities in a game of self-imposed Twister as they conduct a review of the incident followed by multiple internal and external counter-reviews and reviews of the initial review - are we doing a good job of communicating the saving message of the Gospel to our culture through these shenanigans?;  we also review an article in the Church Times which claims that we need a new ecclesiastical digital supremo to help us go fully digital, which we are assured is not an inferior form of worship but the way forward for lots of people and parishes - hmmmmm....Finally, we end with some listener correspondence, part of which constitutes a new rewriting of the Bible for our Covidtide era, starting with a new version of the Good Samaritan.Thank you as always for listening and please do share the podcast around with your friends and acquaintances. You can contact us for any suggestions, criticisms, excoriations etc at irreverendpod@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod. We also make our podcast available in video format on Youtube and you can subscribe to our channel here!If you are looking for a church in England that is open during the lockdown, there is a growing list with basic information available here. Alternatively if you have an open church that you would like to add to the list please do so.  Thanks so much!Support the show

In this week's episode, Revs Jamie and Tom catch up on recent developments, including Tom's shocking lack of knowledge of the contemporary film world. We review a recently leaked document which suggests that 20% per cent of congregants in the CofE will not return after the pandemic restrictions are lifted, and which also postulates "radical changes" for the Church in general. We also talk through the recent Cambridge Union debate on lockdown, which was won by the anti-lockdown debaters. After all that, we get to some of the always interesting correspondence that we've been sent this week.Please visit friend of the show James Blott’s blog Reflective Preacher!As always, please email any comments, suggestion, criticisms etc to irreverenedpod@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod, rate and review us on iTunes, and now follow us on YouTube!Support the show

Greetings friends. For this special episode, Rev J reads out his article that was recently published in the North American Anglican Journal: Living Death: An Ecclesial Apostasy.As always please write in with any comments, suggests, excoriations, or anything else at all to irrevendpod@gmail.com. Also please follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod and rate and review us on iTunes! Thank you.Support the show