Irreverend: Faith and Current Affairs

Revs Tom, Jamie and Daniel get together to discuss the way that the government have used fear to control people, the recent attack on people who do not want to have COVID-19 vaccinations and the projection of the words "vaccine saves" onto the statue of Christ the Redeemer.Our Scripture this week is taken from Isaiah 43:1-2, which speaks of God's intention that we not live lives characterised by fear.Links: The Telegraph - Use of fear to control behaviour in Covid crisis was ‘totalitarian’, admit scientists Cake and Liberty - Oi Missus, Where's Your Bell?The Independent - This is what we do about anti-vaxxers: No job. No entry. No NHS access Notices:Thanks so much to all of our new Patreons! Your support is overwhelming and encouraging. If you would like to join our Patreon community, please go to https://www.patreon.com/irreverend. You can support us starting from £3 a month (plus VAT).If you would like to listen to our sermons, please have a look at our sister podcast, Irreverend: Sermon Audio at https://irreverendsermonaudio.buzzsprout.com!Please email us at irreverendpod@gmail.com. Please also follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod, find our YouTube channel if you prefer video and rate and review us on iTunes!Support the show

Revs Tom, Jamie and Daniel get together to discuss: hugging, the local elections, Michael Gove's personal email to Jamie on vaccine passports, the masked gargoyle in St Alban's Cathedral, racist Church monuments and what vicars are being asked to do about them, and Dr Bernard Ridley, reported to a counter-terrorism unit for preaching a sermon about tolerance! Our Scripture this week is taken from John 17:15-19, through which we ask the question: is the Church of England really allowing itself to be guided by the truth as revealed by Christ or is it merely jumping onto fashionable political bandwagons in search of approval from the world?Notices:For information on how to either attend or view online Dr Edward Dowler's Pusey House address, The Church and the Virus, please see http://www.puseyhouse.org.uk/lectures.html or send an email to pusey.chapel@stx.ox.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list for the Zoom link.Thanks so much to all of our new Patreons! Your support is overwhelming and encouraging. If you would like to join our Patreon community, please go to https://www.patreon.com/irreverend. You can support us starting from £3 a month (plus VAT).If you would like to listen to our sermons, please have a look at our sister podcast, Irreverend: Sermon Audio at https://irreverendsermonaudio.buzzsprout.com!Please email us at irreverendpod@gmail.com. Please also follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod, find our YouTube channel if you prefer video and rate and review us on iTunes!Links:Daniel French (Spectator) - The CofE's misguided obsession with statuesChristian Concern - School chaplain reported to terrorist watchdog for sermon on identity politicsMethodist Covenant PrayerSupport the show

The gruesome twosome Revs Tom and Jamie get stuck into some meaty conversation from the book of Acts about the possibility of Christianity being persecuted in our lands before long. As evidence of this, we cover the arrest of street preacher John Sherwood who was detained overnight in a police cell for expounding upon the first chapter of the book of Genesis in public!We repair the awful oversight of not talking about the huge London protest march that occurred on Saturday 24th April and was totally ignored by the UK media.We ask how the church can continue to allow itself to be run by men like Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock, the latter of whom this week has reopened the conversation around euthanasia and who is transforming the NHS general practice into an online service with horrendous results.In church news, we discuss the significance of not singing and the continued absence of the common chalice! We also review the latest update on church bell-ringing and bring to bear a chilling email of the week.Thanks so much to all of our new Patreons! Your support is overwhelming and it will help us to do so much more. If you would like to join our Patreon community, please go to https://www.patreon.com/irreverend. You can support us starting from £3 a month.If you would like to listen to our sermons, please have a look at our sister podcast, Irreverend: Sermon Audio at https://irreverendsermonaudio.buzzsprout.com!Please email irreverendpod@gmail.com. Please also follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod, find our YouTube channel if you prefer video and rate and review us on iTunes!Support the show

This week sees the three ecclesiastical musketeers Tom, Jamie and Daniel take on the subjects of fear and death in the context of the present crisis. In politics, we discuss Johnny Mercer's dramatic resignation from the government describing it as, amongst other things, a "cesspit".In the Church, we review the shocking news that a quarter of Brits say they would take spiritual advice from a robot priest and the various implications of ordained AI ministry. We also tackle developments in church bell-ringing and look at the Church of England's 'From Lament to Action' anti-racism report and some robust epistolary feedback from Calvin Robinson.Finally we read out two emails of the week which help us to settle the perennial question, "Is the COVID disaster best explained as incompetence, ideology, conspiracy or all three?"Thanks so much to all of our new Patreons! Your support is literally overwhelming and it will help us to do so much more. If you would like to join our Patreon community, please go to https://www.patreon.com/irreverend. You can support us starting from £3 a month.If you would like to listen to our sermons, please have a look at our sister podcast, Irreverend: Sermon Audio at https://irreverendsermonaudio.buzzsprout.com!Please email irreverendpod@gmail.com. Please also follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod, find our YouTube channel if you prefer video and rate and review us on iTunes!Support the show

Back to the original duo this week, as reverends Tom and Jamie discuss ALL the big stuff. We start with a conversation about Boris Johnson's most recent tedious doom-mongering. Is he a "floundering buffoon", a puppet or something even more sinister?We talk vaccines and vaccine passports. Tony Blair has said that we need even more "publicity" in order to "confront vaccine hesitancy". And our vaccine passport letter bears fruit as we go national and become the news! All links at the end of the show notes.In Ireland, Christianity is now functionally illegal and finally some (Roman) church leaders have decided to speak up to a certain degree.We feature the Lament to Action report coming from the CofE, which is of course "deeply institutionally racist". The report outlines the measures that are going to be taken to correct this ostensible reality.Finally, we end with a deeply moving email of the week from a dear listener.We  encourage listeners to write to your MPs and tell them that we will not put up with any vaccine passports. Please also submit evidence to the cross-parliamentary commission that has been set up - https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/438/covid-19-vaccine-certification/ - even if it just to summarise the contents of our letter - https://vaccinepassportletter.wordpress.com.Thanks so much to all of our new Patreons! Your support is literally overwhelming and it will help us to do so much more. If you would like to join our Patreon community, please go to https://www.patreon.com/irreverend. You can support us starting from £3 a month.If you would like to listen to our sermons, please have a look at our sister podcast, Irreverend: Sermon Audio at https://irreverendsermonaudio.buzzsprout.com! Please email irreverendpod@gmail.com. Please also follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod, find our YouTube channel if you prefer video and rate and review us on iTunes!Media Links for our Vaccine Passport Letter:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/17/1000-vicars-vow-defy-vaccine-passport-plans-churches/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56781724https://www.christianaid.org.uk/campaigns/uprooted-and-overlooked/open-letter-from-faith-leadershttps://www.spectator.co.uk/article/an-open-letter-from-christian-leaders-concerning-vaccine-passportshttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/church-vaccine-passports-boris-johnson-b1833036.htmlhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/17/uk-church-leaders-warn-against-dangerous-vaccine-passport-planshttps://www.christiantoday.com/article/nearly.1000.church.leaders.sign.letter.opposing.vaccine.passports/136656.htmhttps://unherd.com/thepost/church-leaders-vaccine-passports-would-be-un-christian/ Support the show

A veritable panel this week, as regular co-hosts Revs Daniel, Jamie and Tom are joined by bona-fide American political commentator Esther O'Reilly. We talk about GraceLife Church in Canada whose pastor was jailed for a month for ignoring COVID restrictions and is now conducting meetings with his congregation in an undisclosed location. We also talk about elder isolation in the States and ask Esther if everyone in the US is as fed up with Fauci as they are here with Whitty (they are). We discuss vaccines again and update our audience on our vaccine passport campaign, which has now garnered well over a thousand signatures, is being picked up by the national press and has received favourable support from multiple MPs. We check out Edwina Curry's Dolores Umbridge impersonation as she declares that she does not want the great unvaccinated anywhere near her. We also discuss the latest dubious and manipulative misinformation coming at us from 10 Downing Street. And we bid a fond farewell to the Legend of Banter, Prince Philip, talking about some of our favourite quotes.To find Esther, you can follow her on Twitter and find her blog where she shares all of her unfashionable opinions.Please check out our new sister podcast Irreverend: Sermon Audio where we feature sermons written and delivered by our very own hosts, Jamie, Tom and Daniel.If you are a leader in a church or Christian organisation, please read and sign our Vaccination Passport Letter to the Prime Minister which is still open for signatures. If you are not a leader and would like to help please send this letter to any Christian leaders you know and share it in your social media channels. Whether you are a leader or not, please write to your MP and tell him or her how much you are scandalised by the very idea of vaccine passports.Thanks so much to all of our new Patreons! Your support is literally overwhelming and it will help us to do so much more. We are already reaping the rewards with Tom's new microphone! If you would like to join our Patreon community, please go to https://www.patreon.com/irreverend. You can support us starting from £3 a month.Please email feedback, excoriations, criticisms etc to irreverendpod@gmail.com. Please also follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod, find our YouTube channel if you prefer video and rate and review us on iTunes!Support the show

This week Revs Tom and Jamie give it both barrels on the subject of Easter Monday's dismal, doom-mongering, life-sapping press conference, predicting imminent death for the entirety of the human race unless we wear masks forever and never touch another human being again...oh and also unless the government are allowed to create a new medical apartheid in the UK using vaccine passports. We update our viewers on the Vaccination Passport Letter campaign, in which we voice our strong opposition to vaccines passports in society and church. We cover the obscene police church invasion in south London, which took place on Good Friday and ask what the heck were the police thinking? And finally, we turn to the best of the listener feedback including a "mildly enjoyable rant".If you are a leader in a church or Christian organisation, please read and sign our Vaccination Passport Letter to the Prime Minister . If you are not a leader and would like to help please send this letter to any Christian leaders you know and share it in your social media channels. Whether you are a leader or not, please write to your MP and tell him or her how much you are scandalised by the very idea of vaccine passports.Thanks so much to all of our new Patreons! Your support is literally overwhelming and it will help us to do so much more. Tom has even ordered a new microphone now! If you would like to become a Patreon, please go to https://www.patreon.com/irreverend. You can support us starting from £3 a month.Please email feedback, excoriations, criticisms etc to irreverendpod@gmail.com. Please also follow us on Twitter @irreverendpod and find our YouTube channel if you prefer video!Support the show

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