The Church Times Podcast

“What could Shakespeare’s plays and poems teach me about the Christian faith and the God who loves me?” This is the question posed by Peter Graystone on this week’s podcast, as he reflects on the spiritual significance of a memorable scene in The Winter’s Tale. The talk was first given at an online Advent Retreat, on 27 November, hosted by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. It is introduced by Christine Smith, Publishing Director of Hymns Ancient & Modern. To access a recording of the whole event, book a ticket at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/advent-retreat Peter’s latest book, All’s Well that Ends Well: From dust to resurrection: 40 days with Shakespeare, is published by Canterbury Press and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £11.69. Peter is a writer who has worked for Scripture Union, Christian Aid, and the Church Army. He is the Church Times’s theatre critic, and a contributor to Reflections for Daily Prayer. 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.

On this week’s podcast, Dr Andrew Rumsey talks about his new book, English Grounds: A pastoral journal (SCM Press). The book is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £15.99, and extracts are published in this week’s Church Times (3 December). “It’s a book about places, the way that we shape them and they shape us,” he says in a short video about the book. “It’s about memory and belonging and heritage, Christian heritage especially, and the way in which the Church has shaped the nation’s story for good and ill over many centuries, and my hope that the Christian narrative can yet help us to tell a more hopeful story about England’s future.” At the end of the podcast, he reads an extract from the book and plays a song, “Silbury Hill,” which he wrote to accompany the launch of the book. Dr Rumsey is the Bishop of Ramsbury in Salisbury diocese, and the co-lead bishop for church buildings and cathedrals. His previous book is Parish: An Anglican theology of place (Features, 2 June 2017, Books, 21 July 2017). Music for the podcast is by Twisterium. Picture credit: KT BRUCE 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.

As the start of Advent approaches, this week's podcast returns to Malcolm Guite’s journey through “The Great O Antiphons”: seven prayers which the Church prayed during the first centuries, which called afresh for Christ to come. Malcolm reads each of the seven prayers and reflects on them, and offers his own poetic response to each one, taken from his collection Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian year (Canterbury Press). This talk was first broadcast last November during an online Advent retreat, hosted by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. 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. His books include Mariner: A voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Hodder), Love Remember: 40 poems of loss, lament and hope (Canterbury Press), and David’s Crown: Sounding the Psalms (Canterbury Press). 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.

On the podcast this week, a panel convened for a recent Church Times webinar answers two questions: Does the parish need saving? And what frustrates them about the current debate about the future of the parish? Watch the whole webinar — including the panel’s responses to viewers’ questions — at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/12-november/audio-video/video/does-the-parish-need-saving The panel: The Bishop of Ramsbury, Dr Andrew Rumsey, author of Parish: An Anglican Theology of Place (SCM, 2017) (Books, 21 July 2017). The diocesan secretary of Bangor, the Revd Siôn Rhys Evans. The Rural Dean of Haverstoe, and Rector of The Waltham Group, in the diocese of Lincoln, the Revd Kimberly Bohan. The Rector of The Ascension, Hulme, the Revd Azariah France-Williams, author of Ghost Ship: Institutional racism and the Church of England (SCM Press) (Podcast, 25 September 2020). Canon Angela Tilby, Canon-of-Honour at Portsmouth Cathedral, member of the Save the Parish network steering committee, and Church Times columnist It is chaired by Madeleine Davies, Senior Writer, Church Times. 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.

On the podcast this week, the Revd Stephen Hance, the C of E’s Lead on Evangelism and Discipleship, talks to Madeleine Davies about research that he has carried out about how the general public views the Church of England. The research is published in a Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us: Perceptions of the Church of England (MEv135), published by Grove Books at £3.95. 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, we hear from the launch of the Green Church Showcase, which took place in Glasgow on Tuesday, during the COP26 climate summit. The speakers are the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, who is the C of E’s lead bishop on the environment; Dr Ruth Valerio, director of advocacy and influencing at Tearfund; and Richard Black, senior associate at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. The Showcase, a joint production by the Church of England’s environment programme and the Church Times, highlights seven projects from different denominations (watch a video about them on our website). Read more about the Green Church Showcase in this Friday’s Church Times (5 November). Picture credit: Albin Hillert 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 COP26 climate-change conference begins in Glasgow, on Sunday (31 October). So this seemed like a good time to revisit a special podcast that we posted a year ago: Everybody Now, a podcast about what it means to be human on the threshold of a global climate emergency, in a time of systemic injustice and runaway pandemics. Scientists, activists, farmers, poets, and theologians talk bravely and frankly about how our biosphere is changing, about grief and hope in an age of social collapse and mass extinction, and about taking action against all the odds. On 19 October 2020, Everybody Now was released by podcasters all over the world as a collective call for awareness, grief, and loving action. With contributions from: Dr Gail Bradbrook, scientist and co-founder of Extinction Rebellion Professor Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester Dámaris Albuquerque, works with agricultural communities in Nicaragua The Rt Revd Dr Rowan Williams, theologian and poet, and a former Archbishop of Canterbury Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet, theologian, and conflict mediator Rachel Mander, environmental activist with Hope for the Future John Swales, priest and activist, and part of a community for marginalised people Zena Kazeme, Persian-Iraqi poet who draws on her experiences as a former refugee to create poetry that explores themes of exile, home, war, and heritage Flo Brady, singer and theatre maker Hannah Malcolm, Anglican ordinand, climate writer, and organiser Alastair McIntosh, writer, academic, and land rights activist David Benjamin Blower, musician, poet, and podcaster Funding and Production: This podcast was crowdfunded by a handful of good souls, and produced by Tim Nash and David Benjamin Blower (www.nomadpodcast.co.uk). Permissions: The song Happily by Flo Brady is used with permission. The song The Soil, from We Really Existed and We Really Did This by David Benjamin Blower, used with permission. The Poem The Tree of Knowledge by Pádraig Ó Tuama used with permission. The Poem Atlas by Zena Kazeme used with permission. The Poem What is Man? by Rowan Williams from the book The Other Mountain, used with permission from Carcanet Press. The Church Times Podcast will return next week (5 November).

This week, Joe Ware, senior climate journalist at Christian Aid, is on the podcast to talk about the UN climate-change conference COP26, which starts in Glasgow at the end of this month. He has written a preview of COP26 for this week’s issue of the Church Times (22 October), as part of a series of features on the climate crisis. He has also written an in-depth report in our news section on how climate campaigners of faith have been building pressure for change in advance of COP26. On the podcast, Joe expands on the themes of his articles, explaining the scale of the challenge, the part played by geo-politics in climate negotiations, and what campaigners think that COP26’s priorities should be. Picture credit: Alamy 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.

Peter Stanford returns to the podcast this week to talk about his new book, If These Stones Could Talk: The history of Christianity in Britain and Ireland through Twenty Buildings (Hodder & Stoughton). It’s available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £16. A press release from Hodder says of the book: “In exploring the stories of these buildings that are still so much a part of the landscape, the details of their design, the treasured objects that are housed within them, the people who once stood in their pulpits and those who sat in their pews, he builds century by century the narrative of what Christianity has meant to the nations of the British Isles, how it is reflected in the relationship between rulers and ruled, and the sense it gives about who we are and how we live with each other.” 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, Ed Thornton talks to Andrew Graystone about his book Bleeding for Jesus: John Smyth and the cult of Iwerne camps (DLT (Books, 1 October). The book is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for £11.69. “I've drawn on a very wide range of sources to produce really quite a detailed account of what has happened,” Andrew says. “But I've tried to weave it together into a narrative that makes sense and is more than just a life of John Smyth. “The intention is that it should also serve the Church as a bit of a study in how spiritual abuse can happen. So, I hope that people who read the book will not just be horrified, although they will be horrified, by the ways that this man treated young men and children. But I hope they will also reflect on the ways that cultures within the Church sometimes enable abuse to happen.” Andrew Graystone is a writer, theologian, and activist. His previous books include Faith, Hope and Mischief: Tiny acts of rebellion by an everyday activist (Canterbury Press) (Podcast, 28 August 2020) and Too Much Information? Ten essential questions for digital Christians (Canterbury Press) (Podcast, 4 October 2019). 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.