The Church Times Podcast

On this week’s podcast, Claire Gilbert talks to Gareth Higgins about her book Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Letters on hope, death and learning to live (Hodder & Stoughton). It’s available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the reduced price of £14.99. After being diagnosed with myeloma, an incurable cancer of the blood, Claire Gilbert, who is the founder Director of the Westminster Abbey Institute, began writing to her siblings and a group of close friends about what she was going through. In a review of the book for the Church Times, Caroline Chartres writes: “This is not a book about dying, but, rather, a book about how facing death enables us truly to live.” Read the review and an extract from the book at www.churchtimes.co.uk This conversation was recorded on Saturday at an online event organised by the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, Finding Meaning. Other speakers at the event were the journalist and broadcaster Sarah Sands, talking about her book The Interior Silence; Gareth Higgins speaking about his book How Not to be Afraid; and Brian McLaren, who spoke about his latest book, Faith After Doubt. Buy access to a recording of the event at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/buy-tickets/ The conversation features occasional strong language. Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup 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, the Rt Revd Graham James, a former Bishop of Norwich, reflects on the faith of Prince Philip. Bishop James preached numerous times at Sandringham and was quizzed by the Duke of Edinburgh about the content of his sermons, as well as wider theological matters. “It was a questioning, searching faith,” Bishop James says. “There’s a sense in which his own restlessness, which was obvious throughout the whole of his life, was also applied to his religion. But that, I think, was why it meant a lot to him. He didn’t want a routine religion: he wanted one which challenged his mind as well as his spirit.” Bishop James writes about Prince Philip in this week’s Church Times, which also contains coverage of church leaders’ tributes, an obituary, and more. 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. Picture credit: Alamy

The regular podcast is on a break this week, so here is a chance to listen again, or for the first time, to an episode from our archive. It’s a talk by Brian McLaren called “Worship that destroys (and saves) the world”, which was recorded at the 2019 Church Times Festival of Preaching (Features, 20 September 2019). On Saturday 17 April, Brian McLaren will be speaking about his new book, Faith After Doubt (Hodder & Stoughton), at a Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature one-day online event. Buy tickets at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/buy-tickets/ Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup 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. Picture credit: Copyright David Hartley

On this week’s podcast, Vicky Walker talks to the actor Sir David Suchet, whose reading of the whole of St John’s Gospel will be broadcast online on Easter Day at 4 p.m. The reading was recorded in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey, and will be streamed at www.youtube.com/c/WestminsterAbbeyLondon/. “I want the listener to feel very comfortable. I want you to be sitting with me,” he says. “And as I look into the camera, I’ll be looking at you. And I’m just reading to you. I may be speaking to what may amount to millions, but my tone is intimate, warm, friendly, not to push you away, but draw you in and just share it.” Sir David also talks in the interview about his conversion to Christianity and his journey of faith since. In 2015, Sir David, best-known for playing Agatha Christie’s fictional detective Hercule Poirot, recorded the first full-length audio version of the Bible, for the NIV Audio Bible App by Hodder & Stoughton (News, 1 January 2016). In 2017, he read the whole of St Mark’s Gospel aloud in the pulpit of St Paul’s Cathedral, to more than 2000 people (News, 7 April 2017). The video has received 2.4 million views online. 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, John Pritchard considers how the experience of pilgrimage can enrich our everyday lives once we return home. This talk was recorded at the latest Church Times Festival of Pilgrimage, which took place online on Monday. The experience of pilgrimage, he hopes, “will permeate the rest of our lived experience. . . The essence of religion is actually about the presence of God in the midst of everyday life. Not God in a box on the edge of our everyday lives, but God in the heart of it all, because that’s where discipleship is to be found — right at the heart of everything.” The Rt Revd John Pritchard is a former Bishop of Oxford and a popular writer of books such as The Life and Work of a Priest, Why go to Church?, and God Lost and Found. The full 2021 Festival of Pilgrimage event will be available to watch at https://pilgrimage.hymnsam.co.uk/ Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup 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.

This week’s podcast features talks from the final of the Theology Slam 2021, which took place online on Thursday evening. The first talk is by Imogen Ball, a final year ordinand and MA student at Trinity College Bristol, speaking on “Creativity in a time of pandemic”. She is followed by Joshua House, a recent theology graduate from the University of Leeds who is now a trainee RE teacher, and who speaks on “Community in a time of pandemic”. The final talk is by Flo O’Taylor, a Phd student at Durham University, on “Justice in a time of pandemic”. Theology Slam is a competition to find engaging young voices who think theologically about the contemporary world. Its organised jointly by the Church Times, SCM Press and the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. Read more about the final, and find out the winner, at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/ Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup 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, Canon Mark Oakley talks about the books that have helped him through the pandemic so far. “Literature is more a verb than a noun; a living conversation,” he says. “Opening up the covers is opening up the door to a hospitable place, asking me to come in and take a seat. Literature makes thing matter. Literature, like faith, is a celebration of the meaning of experience and of the experience of meaning.” This talks was originally given at a one-day online event organised last month by the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Buy access to a recording of the whole event here. Canon Mark Oakley is Dean of St John's College, Cambridge, and the author of The Splash of Words: Believing in poetry (Canterbury Press), which won the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize. Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup 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. Picture credit: KT Bruce

Announcing his Budget on Wednesday, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said that his measures would protect “the lowest-paid and most vulnerable”, who had been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. On the podcast this week, Ed Thornton talks to the director of Church Action for Tax Justice, Dr Justin Thacker, about whether the Budget lives up to Mr Sunak’s claims. Dr Thacker assesses whether the tax measures in the Budget will actually generate the revenue needed to help those who are struggling financially, and asks whether enough is being done to fund areas such as social care and education. Find out more about Church Action for Tax Justice at https://www.catj.org.uk/. Read our coverage of the Budget in this week's paper and on our website. Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup 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.

This week, Rachel Mann is in conversation with Francis Spufford about his eagerly-anticipated second novel, Light Perpetual (Faber and Faber). It’s available from the Church Times Bookshop for the discounted price of £15.29. The conversation was recorded last Saturday at a one-day online event organised by the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. Francis also answered questions from viewers on subjects including doubt, heaven, and whether, as a writer, he sees God as a great explosion of words. If you missed the live event, you can buy access to a recording at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk In a review published in last week’s Church Times, Angela Tilby wrote: “It is a novel, a story of London, and a set of human stories. It is also a profound and teasing meditation on time and chance and the presence in our lives of an elusive reality greater than ourselves. It works as both a novel, and as a hymn at life that begins in disaster and ends in doxology. “The interwoven stories are of five south-London children, Jo, Valerie, Alec, Vernon, and Ben. They were among those who were pulverised in a V2 rocket attack in November 1944. But supposing time had played a trick and the bomb had not gone off, or had exploded harmlessly elsewhere?” Francis Spufford’s first novel, Golden Hill, won the Costa First Novel Award 2016. 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: Eamonn McCabe/Popperfoto Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup 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, Canon Mark Oakley talks to the director of St Mellitus College, the Revd Dr Hannah Steele, about her new book, Living His Story: Revealing the extraordinary love of God in ordinary ways (SPCK) (Books, 22 January). It is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent book 2021. The book seeks to provide a fresh perspective on evangelism, pursuing Walter Brueggemann’s description of evangelism as “an invitation and summons to ‘switch stories’ and therefore to change lives”. The interview was recorded during an online event earlier this month, which also featured two other authors talking about their Lent books: Sam Wells on A Cross in the Heart of God (Canterbury Press) and Stephen Cherry on Thy Will Be Done (Bloomsbury). All the books are available at the Church Times Bookshop. You can watch a video of the event at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/5-february/audio-video/video/lent-books-discussion-and-readings The Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature is hosting a one-day online event on Saturday 20 February, titled Light in Darkness. Speakers include Francis Spufford, talking about his new novel, Light Perpetual, which is reviewed in this week’s Church Times. The other speakers are Katherine Tiernan, Rachel Mann, Mark Oakley and Stephen Cherry. Find out more and book tickets at churchtimes.co.uk/events Find out about other forthcoming Church Times online events at www.churchtimes.co.uk/events. Sign up to receive our email newsletter at churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup 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.