The Church Times Podcast

On the podcast this week, Matt Rowland Hill talks to Sarah Meyrick about his critically acclaimed memoir, Original Sins. The book tells the story of growing up as the son of an Evangelical Baptist minister in South Wales and then Leighton Buzzard, fraught with bitter family conflict and fear of damnation. After rejecting religion in his late teens , he became addicted to crack and heroin, eventually being set on the path to recovery with the help of a Christian rehab charity. “They had a different style of Christianity to my parents’,” he says. “They felt that they were helping me because they were expressing God’s love, and that just blew my mind. . . “Did I then become the prodigal son and come back to Christianity? It would have made a very nice story if I had.” Original Sins is published by Chatto & Windus at £16.99 (Church Times Bookshop £15.29) Picture credit: Laura Lewis Music for the podcast is by Twisterium Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Dame Hilary Mantel, the acclaimed author of the Wolf Hall trilogy, has died aged 70, her publisher has announced. At an event at Launde Abbey in 2019, Dame Hilary reflected on the life of Thomas Cromwell and his place in the Reformation. The short talk that she gave at the start of the event is featured on this week’s podcast. It was recorded about a year before the publication of the final book in the triology, The Mirror & the Light (Fourth Estate) (Books, 12 June 2020). The full event, at which the Revd Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch also spoke, can be listened to https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2019/2-august/regulars/podcast/hilary-mantel-and-diarmaid-macculloch-at-launde-abbey-remembering-thomas-cromwell An edited record of their talks and conversation can be read at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2019/2-august/features/features/make-something-of-me-creating-thomas-cromwell Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Since the death of Her Majesty the Queen last week, many have drawn attention to her deep Christian faith, which inspired dedicated, humble service during her 70-year reign. On the podcast this week, the Rt Revd Graham James, a former Bishop of Norwich, talks about the late Queen’s Christian faith and her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. He has also written an article in this week’s Church Times, which can be read at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk. There is also extensive coverage of tributes, funeral plans, an obituary, and more. “One of the things that really struck me was that the Queen’s faith was interwoven entirely and completely with the rest of her life,” he says. “And I think it came out of an era in which she was formed in which the Book of Common Prayer was still the absolute bedrock of the Church of England, in which the assumption is that God is woven into part of human life and is not a leisure activity for weekends or something that appeals to only a section of the population. . . He says later in the interview: “The Queen did move with the times. . . she accommodated herself, without changing in herself, to a changing culture. But the one thing that she didn’t cease to do, which much of England had ceased to do during her reign, was go to church and speak of the importance of the Christian faith to her. “What we saw was a country that never wanted the Queen, let alone the rest of the Royal Family, to give up going to church, but wanted sometimes to do this on their behalf, because they saw in her a unity between Church and State, they saw in her, as a figurehead without political power, a means of creating harmony in the country. And I think instinctively people realised that came from a deeply held Christian conviction on her part.” Picture credit: Alamy Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

A Terrible Kindness, the debut novel by Jo Browning Wroe, is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club — and on the podcast this week, the author speaks to the Revd Malcolm Doney (who has written this month’s Book Club essay about it). The book is published by Faber & Faber at £14.99 (Church Times Bookshop £13.49). Jo Browning Wroe has an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, and is Creative Writing Supervisor at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. A Terrible Kindness, a Sunday Times bestseller, was inspired by conversations that she had with two embalmers who had volunteered to help at the Aberfan disaster when they were young men in 1966, and from her own childhood experience of growing up at a crematorium in Birmingham where her father was a supervisor (fuller synopsis below). The Book Club podcast is a monthly series launched recently in association with the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Jo Browning Wroe will be a speaker at the next festival, in February 2023. Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup Discuss this month’s book at https://www.facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub About A Terrible Kindness: The fictional story of a newly qualified embalmer William Lavery, who, on hearing the news of the Aberfan disaster in 1966, volunteers to help. The experience alters him profoundly, forcing him to revisit the painful losses in his own life — the death of his father, the disappointment of a lost musical career, and an estranged relationship with his mother. The story charts William’s inner turmoil over the ensuing years: covering his attempts to find redemption by mending fractured relationships, reconnecting with music, and reaching out to others. The story ends with his return to the disaster site 17 years later. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

The Revd Guy Hewitt is to be the first Racial Justice Director of the Church of England, it was announced this week. In April 2018, when he was the High Commissioner for Barbados to the United Kingdom, Mr Hewitt was interviewed on the Church Times Podcast about the campaign he led for thousands of members of the Windrush generation to be recognised as British citizens. He had written about it in the Church Times earlier that month, as the campaign was gathering pace (Comment, 13 April 2018). “The policy U-turn that the Government made in less than two weeks of this becoming an issue was, for me, a modern-day miracle,” he said in the interview. “It was unprecedented for a government to take such a drastic and radical change of position in such a time-frame.” Later in the interview, he said: “What we were in this for was to get justice for the Windrush generation. For me it’s not about recriminations or even who is at fault: it is about continuing to work forward to find a solution.” He concluded: “One of the roles of that the Church of England, that the Christian community, that the interfaith community can do is to find a way of reinforcing the love, the togetherness, the solidarity that exists. "This country has got to find a way, once and for all in the 21st century, when we are talking about a modern, global Britain, to be able to put aside all forms of discrimination and move forward as a single people, united under one Kingdom, which is Great Britain.”

Night of Fire by Colin Thubron is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club — and on the podcast this week, the author is interviewed by Francis Martin (who has written this month’s Book Club essay about it). Thubron is an acclaimed travel writer and novelist, whose eight novels and 11 works of non-fiction make up an oeuvre that transports readers around the globe, and deep into the human psyche. He is a former President of the Royal Society of Literature. As well as talking about Night of Fire (synopsis below), the conversation explores the relationship between travel writing and fiction, faith and neuroscience, and the part played by doubt in the creative process. The conversation was recorded at Colin Thubron’s home in west London. This is the fourth Book Club podcast, a monthly series launched recently in association with the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Night of Fire is published by Vintage at £8.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.09). 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 About Night of Fire: A fire spreads through a house, threatening to engulf the six tenants: a failed priest, an atheist neurosurgeon, and an obsessive photographer, along with a naturalist, a schoolboy, and a traveller. Each has lived a fascinating life, conjured in Thubron’s lyrical prose. But, as the inferno courses through the building, we start to notice inexplicable resonances between the lives of the tenants: motifs that recur and details that repeat, and that surely cannot all be explained as coincidence. Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Malcolm Guite talks about the faith of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the anniversary of whose death was marked on Monday (25 July). Part of the interview featured on the very first episode of the Church Times Podcast, in 2017, shortly after the publication of his book Mariner: A voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Hodder & Stoughton) (Books, 10 February 2017). “Coleridge roots our own capacity to know through the imagination with the divine imagination. And he sees the imagination with which we perceive the world as an echo in the finite mind of the eternal and infinite act of creation in the divine”, Malcolm says. “That’s dynamite, that’s an amazing thing he’s actually saying: anybody engaged in a moment of artistic apprehension and intuition is echoing the way God made the world and helping to see it.” After the interview, Malcolm reads a sonnet that he wrote for Coleridge. It was recorded in St Michael’s, Highgate, in north London, where Coleridge is buried. Malcolm’s most recent book is Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God (Canterbury Press) (Faith feature, 13 May, Books 1 July). The Revd Dr Malcolm Guite is a Life Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and writes the weekly Poet’s Corner column 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 churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, the Revd Dr Andrew Atherstone talks about his new book, Repackaging Christianity: Alpha and the building of a global brand — the first book length history of the Alpha movement. It’s published by Hodder & Stoughton and is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the reduced price of £19.80. The book “tells the remarkable story of Alpha . . . from its origins in the West London dinner party set of the 1970s, turbo charged by the influence of John Wimber and the Toronto Blessing in the 1990s, to what is now an international movement embraced on every continent in the world”. On the podcast, Dr Atherstone talks about what he uncovered while researching the book, explains how Alpha has evolved over the years, and addresses some of the criticisms that have been directed at the movement, from within and outside the Church. Dr Atherstone is Latimer Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and a member of Oxford University's Faculty of Theology and Religion. His previous books include a biography of the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Justin Welby: Risktaker and Reconciler (DLT, 2014). Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

On the podcast this week, Ali Campbell talks about why he believes that youth and children’s work is facing a crisis — and what can be done to support this ministry. Ali is leading a new association, Paraklesis, to support lay people in youth, children’s, and family’s ministry, which is supported by the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow. Read more about it here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2022/8-july/news/uk/new-association-offers-support-to-lay-workers-and-volunteers-in-youth-and-children-s-ministries Ali says: “Paraklesis, taken from the Greek, really just means to be alongside, to journey with, to be an advocate for. It’s where we get “Paraclete”, that sense of the Holy Spirit being the Comforter, and the one who is alongside us. So that’s why the name is what it is, because we want that to be what the organisation does.” Ali runs The Resource, a youth- and children’s-ministry consultancy, and is a former youth adviser for the diocese of Chichester. His books include Follow Me! (Kevin Mahew). https://www.paraklesis.org.uk https://theresource.org.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 churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Widowland by C. J. Carey is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club — and on the podcast this week, Sarah Meyrick interviews the author, Jane Thynne (who wrote the book under the pen name C.J. Carey). The book was suggested by the Revd Richard Lamey, who has written this month’s Church Times Book Club essay about it. This is the third Book Club podcast, a monthly series launched recently in association with the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Widowland is published by Quercus at £8.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.09); 978-1-5294-1200-0. 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 About Widowland: The Coronation is approaching, but it is 1953 in an alternative universe, and Princess Elizabeth won’t be taking the throne. Widowland imagines a world in which Britain made peace with Germany in 1940. Under this new alliance, many of the men have been sent to the continent, or disappeared. As women now greatly outnumber men, they are categorised, when they reach 18, into a range of roles which shape everything about their future. Women over 50, and those too old to give birth, become marginalised and fall into the bottom rung of society. They live in a ghetto, Widowland. Outbreaks of insurgency emerge, and the Ministry of Culture gives the heroine, Rose, the task of infiltrating Widowland to find the source of this uprising. Will she carry out her instructions and betray the women? Picture credit: © Charles Kerr Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.