The Church Times Podcast

On this week’s podcast, Emma Major, a licensed lay pioneer minister at St Nicolas’s, Earley, in Oxford diocese, offers advice on how the Church can better include disabled people. She reads from an article that she wrote, which is published on our website: Isolation and the Church: online and offline. She says: “Of course, in a few weeks’ time, the first phase of lockdown may be eased and most church buildings open up again. I wonder what will happen, if so. Will online church provisions stop? How will this affect those who have to continue shielding themselves? Will churches stream the services from their buildings? How will those at home be included in worship and leadership and encouraged in their calling? “Will churches realise the importance of including everyone who has been excluded from physical churches until now? How will that look? Perhaps hearing my experience will help you to understand what I mean.”

This week, Hannah Bacon talks about the research behind her book Feminist Theology and Contemporary Dieting Culture: Sin, salvation and women’s weight loss narratives (Bloomsbury). In a review of the book published in the Church Times, Jennie Hogan writes: “Susie Orbach’s 1978 seminal book Fat is a Feminist Issue broke taboos about women’s fleshy bodies. In Hannah Bacon’s engaging analysis of notions of fat in relation to Christianity, she argues forcefully and gracefully that fat is also a theological issue. Indeed, we are invited to experience the “faithing” of fat in her book, which is at once accessible and academic in its sustained personal and theological engagement.” Dr Bacon is Associate Professor in Feminist Theology and Acting Head of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Chester, UK. The talk was recorded at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, at Bloxham School, in Oxfordshire, in February. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Canon Rachel Mann about what has inspired and comforted her during the past month of self-isolation: art, literature, film, music, poetry, and prayer. At the end, she reads two poems from her most recent collection, A Kingdom of Love (Carcanet Press). Read Rachel’s reflections in the latest Lift Up Your Hearts, and watch her talk at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature here Canon Rachel Mann is Rector of St Nicholas’s, Burnage, and Visiting Fellow of Manchester Met University. Her most recent book is In the Bleak Midwinter: Advent and Christmas with Christina Rossetti, which she spoke on this podcast about last year. The interview is also available as a video. Picture credit: KT Bruce Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

Foodbanks in the UK are experiencing unprecedented demand as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton speaks to Robin Ferris, the CEO and Founder of Bankuet, an online foodbank donation service. Bankuet enables people to donate to foodbanks without leaving their home, and to buy the items that foodbanks most need. Find out more at bankuet.co.uk Before founding Bankuet, Robin worked in the entertainment industry with companies including Universal Pictures, Island Records and BBC Worldwide. He lives in Hackney and is a part of Kings Cross Church. At the end of this week’s episode, we hear a sonnet from our Poet’s Corner columnist, Malcolm Guite: "For the Unseen, a Sonnet for Carers." Malcolm wrote the sonnet five years ago for a service at Ely Cathedral celebrating the work of carers. He wrote on his blog this week: “Now in the midst of a pandemic, I send it out again, thinking this time of the myriad care workers, the NHS frontline staff, the neighbours leaving food at doorsteps, the partners and families of those in self-isolation, all who are tending, even from a distance and over a screen to the needs of their loved ones. "This goes out especially to ‘The patient partners lifting up a cross/to bear the burden their beloved bears’.” Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

Charities have launched emergency appeals for donations to help the most vulnerable, at home and abroad, during the coronavirus crisis. Much of the third sector have seen a significant drop in funds, just at the time when the people they help need them most. The Children’s Society has launched an appeal to raise funds to protect the vulnerable children and young people it works with. You can donate to it at www.childrenssociety.org.uk/lifeline. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton speaks to the Children’s Society’s chief executive, Mark Russell, about the appeal and about how the charity has radically changed how it works so that it can continue to support vulnerable children and young people. Also on this week’s podcast, Ed speaks to Church Times news reporter Maddy Fry about the difficulties facing Christian actors and musicians, many of whom currently have no work. She tells him about the work that chaplains in the creative industries are doing to support people in the theatre and music communities. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

Cole Moreton is a writer and broadcaster (and a former reporter and news editor of the Church Times). He has been named Interviewer of the Year for his work with the Mail on Sunday and his Radio 4 series The Boy Who Gave His Heart Away won Audio Moment of the Year, (a book of the same name was published in 2017. He lives near Beachy Head, the setting for his critically acclaimed debut novel The Light Keeper. In a review of the book published in the Church Times, Mark Oakley wrote: “Its themes are piercingly unapologetic — childlessness, grief, suicide, loss, the fragility of relationships, and bereavement’s erratic leadership of our emotions and, often, of life itself. Carefully paced but intense, detached but compelling, the movement of the novel is as enticing and treacherous as the sea and the coastland cliffs it beautifully evokes.” At the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature last month, Cole Moreton spoke to Angela Tilby about the themes of the book and read passages from it. You can listen to the fascinating conversation on this week’s podcast. The Light Keeper is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop. It is out in paperback in May. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

At last month’s Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, Mark Oakley gave a talk titled “Music on the Wind”: The love poetry of George Herbert and RS Thomas. Canon Oakley is the Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge, and the Canon Theologian of Wakefield Cathedral. His book The Splash of Words: Believing in Poetry (Canterbury Press) won the Michael Ramsey Prize in 2019. Get the Church Times delivered for 10 weeks for just £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/10-weeks

For two decades, the writer Rhidian Brook has been a contributor to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day: the “God-slot” on the Today programme that is loved by some and criticised others. An extract of his new book, Godbothering: Thoughts, 2000-2020 (SPCK), is published in this week’s Church Times. At the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature last month, he spoke to Bishop John Pritchard about what it’s like being a Thought for the Day contributor: how he comes up with ideas, how to avoid being platitudinous, and what the presenters make of it, among other things. “You want to make people think and sit up, but you don’t want to harangue people either,” he said. “I try and think of my more cantankerous atheistic or agnostic friends, who may be driving to work or shaving or whatever it is, and think ‘Ok, how do I hold their attention?” Listen to the conversation on this week’s podcast. Rhidian Brook’s novels include The Aftermath and The Killing of Butterfly Joe. If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Paul Edmondson, Head of Research at The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, considers some of the different kinds of love which can be found across the Shakespearean canon. The talk is complemented by readings from Finbar Lynch and Catherine Cusack. It was recorded at the 2020 Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which took place at Bloxham School, Oxfordshire, on 21 and 22 February. Read more about the festival in this week’s Church Times. Picture: Paul Edmondson (centre) with Finbar Linch and Catherine Cusack. Credit: KT Bruce If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

The former International Development Secretary Rory Stewart spoke at an event at St James’s Piccadilly, in London, on Monday, organised by Christian Aid. Mr Stewart, who is standing as an independent candidate to be mayor of London, was in conversation with the journalist Edward Stourton. Mr Stewart was asked about the Government’s record on international aid and Britain’s place in the world, among other things. Listen to an edited recording of the event on this week’s podcast. Picture credit: Elizabeth Dalziel/Christian Aid If you don't yet subscribe to the Church Times, check out our new reader offer: 10 issues for £10: www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader