The Church Times Podcast

Canon Rachel Mann has written a Lent course on an unlikely topic: Still Standing: a Lent Course based on the Elton John movie Rocketman (DLT) (Books, 22 January). It’s available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for £6.29. Ed Thornton caught up with Rachel this week to find out more about the course. “Rocketman is not about Elton John’s conversion to Christianity — I don’t know quite what he thinks about Christianity,” Rachel says. “But what it is about is about a human being coming to terms with the depths of his need, with the way in which he’s lived a life of profound excess and damage and brokenness, and that need for healing. And gosh isn’t that a story all of us can perhaps wrestle with — our grit and our grace, our brokenness and our holiness.” Rachel will be talking about her debut novel, The Gospel of Eve (Books, 27 November 2020), at a one-day Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature event being held online on Saturday 20 February. Other speakers include Francis Spufford, whose eagerly anticipated second novel, Light Perpetual, has recently been published; Kathy Tiernan; and Mark Oakley. Book tickets at https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk/buy-tickets/ Canon Rachel Mann is Rector of St Nicholas’s, Burnage, and Visiting Fellow of Manchester Met University. Find out about 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

On this week’s podcast, we bring you a talk given by the Revd Jarel Robinson-Brown, “Prophetic Rage: Fire shut in my bones.” The talk was given last Saturday at an online conference organised by SCM Press, “How to rage: Theology, activism and the Church.” We also publish an edited extract from the talk in this week’s Church Times. He says: “There is no such thing as a prophetic life which is content to be prophetic in language only. Prophetic living, if it is of God, moves us to ask not just what must be said, but, more crucially, what must be done.” This talk was recorded before the row about a tweet that he posted about the clap for Captain Sir Tom Moore, for which he has apologised. Tickets to watch back the livestream of the "How to Rage" conference are available at https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/events Jarel’s book, Black, Gay, British, Christian, Queer: Church and the famine of grace, is due to be published in July by SCM Press. It is available to pre-order from the Church Times Bookshop: https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334060482/black-gay-british-christian-queer Find out about 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 a talk given by the Bishop of Worcester, Dr John Inge, at last week’s Church Times webinar on clergy well-being, “The Weight of This Calling: Clergy burnout, wellbeing, and resilience”. The talk is introduced by Church Times columnist Angela Tilby, who chaired the event. Bishop John was asked to speak on how bishops can help clergy to thrive. “I find the most helpful analogy is to think of myself as the director of a play,” he said. “My job is to try to bring the best out of the cast, so that their energy and God-given creativity and gifting can be released and the production go well. “My role now as a bishop is not to bombard the clergy with initiatives or ad clerums . . . but, pray God, to be an encouraging, non-anxious presence in their midst, discerning where God’s energy is and fanning that flame." He said later in the talk: “Whatever other people place upon us in terms of expectations, it seems to me that our most unrealistic expectations come from within, precisely because we don’t really love ourselves. We preach a gospel of grace and unconditional love, but we live as if we need to prove ourselves to God and others, and maybe the bishop, and maybe the Archbishop. “If we’re going to experience that fullness of life which Jesus yearns to give us, we need to learn to be at home in our own skin — for our own sake, but also for the sake of those to whom we minister.” Find out about 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

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Simon Parke about his new book Gospel: Rumours of love. A work of historical fiction, it is narrated in the first-person through the eyes of Jesus (Yeshua), Mary Magdalene (Miriam), and Mary, the mother of Jesus. “I was interested in going and having a look at some of the gaps,” Simon says. “What was it like for Jesus to leave home?. . . What was it like to wake up in a tomb after you’ve been crucified? There are big holes in the gospel narrative which I wanted to explore.” The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, says: “This is a poignant and mystical story of love which is likely to raise more questions than answers, but then that is not unlike the stories Jesus himself once told.” Simon is an author, speaker, and consultant, who wrote a regular column for the Church Times for 11 years. His recent books include an imagined life of Julian of Norwich, The Secret Testament of Julian (White Crow Books) (Books, 30 November 2018) and The Soldier, the Gaoler, the Spy, and her Lover (Marylebone House) (Books, 5 May 2017). Gospel: Rumours of love is available to pre-order from the Church Times Bookshop, and you can read an extract in the 22 January issue of the Church Times. Our colleagues at SCM Press are holding an online day conference on 30th January titled How to Rage: Theology, activism, and the Church. Speakers include Andrew Graystone, Hannah Malcolm, and Azariah France Williams, who have all been on this podcast before. Find out more and book tickets at scmpress.hymnsam.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 churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader.

Recent events in the United States show that Western-style liberal democracies may not be as robust as we like to think, the Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, writes in a comment article in this week’s Church Times (15 January). The arrest last week of pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong, and the attempt in 2019 by the British Prime Minister to prorogue Parliament, show that threats to democracy are not confined to the US. On this week’s podcast, Dr Smith talks about what needs to be done to support democratic government, and what part churches have to play. He also speaks about the campaign that he has led to reduce the harms caused by gambling. On Thursday 21 January, from 5-7pm, the Church Times is hosting a live webinar on clergy burnout, well-being, and resilience. Tickets are £10 or £5 for Church Times subscribers. For more information and to book tickets, visit www.churchtimes.co.uk/the-weight-of-this-calling 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.

Growing numbers of Christians say that they are “done with” attending church. What are their reasons for doing so, and what can churches learn from it? In Leaving Church: What can we learn from those who are done with church? (Grove Books), Robin Stockitt and S John Dawson tell the stories of those who have moved away from traditional forms of church, and consider what lessons the Church can draw. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Robin Stockitt about the book, which is available to buy at https://grovebooks.co.uk/products/p-162-leaving-church-what-can-we-learn-from-those-who-are-done-with-church An extract from the book is published in this week’s Church Times (8 January). The Revd Robin Stockitt has been ordained for 23 years and has worked in parishes in England, Germany, and Northern Ireland. On Thursday 21 January, from 5-7pm, the Church Times is hosting a live webinar on clergy burnout, well-being, and resilience. Tickets are £10 or £5 for Church Times subscribers. For more information and to book tickets, visit https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/the-weight-of-this-calling Picture credit: iStock 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, we have one of the podcast highlights of 2020: an interview with Madeleine Davies about her book Lights for the Path: a guide through grief, pain, and loss (SPCK). It’s available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop. At the end of the interview, Malcolm Guite reads his sonnet “Pilgrimage”. Read an extract from the Lights for the Path on the Church Times website. In a review of the book on the Living Church website, the Revd Todd Fitzgerald writes that “the most valuable elements of Lights for the Path are the author’s robust theological analysis and extraordinary pastoral sensitivity. At a time when more people lack any belief structure or regular practices with which to navigate life’s ups and downs, Davies’s contribution to literature for teenagers navigating grief is sorely needed. “Without being preachy or dogmatic, Davies invites teens to situate their tragic experience, with all their questions and emotions and confusion, in the midst of the Christian story.”

On this week’s podcast, Malcolm Guite takes us on a 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). Malcolm is posting daily Advent reflections and sonnets on his website: htt//malcolmguite.wordpress.com/tag/o-antiphons/ This talk was first broadcast on 28 November during an online Advent retreat, hosted by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. Malcolm’s latest collection of Poet’s Corner columns, A Heaven in Ordinary: A Poet’s Corner collection, is published by Canterbury Press and is available from the Church Times Bookshop. The Church Times Podcast will return in the new year. We wish all our listeners a very Happy Christmas. 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.

Piranesi, the long-awaited second novel by Susanna Clarke, has been published to critical acclaim. Last month, it was shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Book Awards. Clarke’s 2004 novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, has sold more than four million copies worldwide and been adapted into a BBC television series. After its publication, Clarke suffered from a debilitating illness which made it difficult for her to write. On this week’s podcast, Sarah Lothian interviews Susanna Clarke about how she came to write Piranesi and about how her faith has developed over the course of her illness. She says: “I remember someone once saying that Christianity was very simple. And I thought, ‘Well, it might have a simplicity, but it’s not a simplicity that, I think, is necessarily easily grasped by human beings.’ “I feel I’m struggling towards faith, a simpler, more childlike faith, but I’m trying to get rid of all the neuroses and the difficulties that have accumulated like barnacles, and scrape them off and get back to simplicity.” Piranesi is published by Bloomsbury at £14.99 in hardback (Church Times Bookshop £13.49). 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, Ed Thornton talks to Hannah Malcolm about a new book that she has edited, Words for a Dying World: Stories of grief and courage from the global Church. “I wanted to help people to think about the ways that grief over the world isn’t about death in abstraction. . . The ways that we grieve the world will be particular to the places we come from and the things we’ve experienced. "And we don’t come from the same places, so we have a great deal to learn from the grief of people who have different experiences to us and dialogue with those different experiences can make our understanding of this kind of grief richer.” You can read extracts from the book in this week’s Church Times. Hannah is an ordinand and PhD candidate at Cranmer Hall, Durham, and was the winner of the 2019 Theology Slam competition (News, Comment, 15 March 2019). Words for a Dying World is published on Monday (7 December) by SCM Press at £15.99 (Church Times Bookshop £12.99) 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.