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