The Church Times Podcast

The next Archbishop of York is to be the Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, at present Bishop of Chelmsford, Downing Street announced on Tuesday. Bishop Cottrell spoke at a press conference at Church House on Tuesday morning and took questions from journalists, including the Church Times’s Madeleine Davies. This special edition of the podcast features highlights from that press conference. 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

Should Christians be ambitious? Is church growth something to aim for, or does it risk giving church leaders performance anxiety? These are among the questions that the Bishop of Penrith, Dr Emma Ineson, tackles in her new book Ambition: What Jesus said about power, success and counting stuff, published by SPCK. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to Dr Ineson about these issues and more. The Church Times this week publishes a second extract from the book, which looks theologically at church growth. Dr Emma Ineson is the Bishop of Penrith in the diocese of Carlisle. From 2014 to 2019, she was Principal of Trinity College, Bristol. Ambition is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £9. You can also listen to the Church Times Podcast on the Church Times app for iPhone and iPad, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms. 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 Irish poet Micheal O’Siadhail is admired and quoted by leading theologians. He has published 16 collections of poetry, and was awarded an Irish American Cultural Institute prize for poetry in 1982 and, in 1998, the Marten Toonder prize for Literature. The Five Quintets was published this year in the UK by Canterbury Press. It received the Conference on Christianity and Literature’s 2019 book of the year award. In a review published in August in the Church Times, Martyn Halsall writes: “In The Five Quintets he explores modernity, the philosophical currency evaluating Western thought for the past four centuries. From its demise emerges the insistent question: “What follows?” O’Siadhail brings a lifetime’s reading and analysis across many disciplines, together with formidable lyrical enthusiasm, an expansive linguistic palette, and a restless imagination, to suggest an answer of philosophical artistry and spiritual grace.” O’Siadhail visited London last month, during which time he spoke at Westminster Abbey alongside Lord Blunkett, a former Labour Cabinet minister. The next day, O’Siadhail gave a reading from The Five Quintets at Highgate School, in north London, to an audience of pupils, staff, and guests. Thank you to Highgate School for allowing the event to be recorded for the podcast. It was introduced by the school's Head of Religion & Philosophy, Robbie Leigh. The Five Quintets is available to buy from Church House Bookshop. 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

“Richard Dawkins is the most outstanding missionary of atheism in Britain today”, Hugh Montefiore wrote in the Church Times in 2005. The next year, Dawkins’s The God Delusion was published. Now, Dawkins is taking aim at God again, with the publication of Outgrowing God: a Beginner’s Guide, which his publishers say is aimed at “a new generation”. Rupert Shortt is the Religion Editor at The Times Literary Supplement, and the author of books including God is No Thing (Hurst) and Does Religion Do More Harm than Good? (SPCK), which he spoke about on this podcast in March. Rupert’s new book is Outgrowing Dawkins: God for grown-ups, published by SPCK. It is not a point-by-point rebuttal of Dawkins’s book, Shortt tells me. Instead, he says, he is trying “to demonstrate why Dawkins’s arguments aren’t nearly as coherent as he imagines, but also to say some positives about the coherence of religious belief from a philosophical standpoint but also its practical value.” Outgrowing Dawkins is available from the Church House Bookshop for £9. You can also listen to the Church Times Podcast on the Church Times app for iPhone and iPad, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms. 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 Strategic Development Fund has so far allocated £136m of Church Commissioners money to projects that it is hoped will reverse the pattern of decline in church attendance. In a two-part series, Madeleine Davies has been tracking down what the money has been spent on and has asked how this corresponds with the church’s hopes. On the podcast this week, Madeleine talks to Ed Thornton about what she has discovered. f 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

Three years ago, a new digital team was created at Church House, having been given £2 million of “seed money” to spend over three years. The General Synod has approved £5 million for the next three years, to expand the digital work. What has been achieved so far and what are the plans for the next three years? Are dioceses and parishes benefiting? Can “likes” on social media replace embodied Christian community? This week, Ed Thornton puts these questions — and more — to Adrian Harris, the C of E’s Head of Digital; Amaris Cole, Senior Digital Communications Manager; and Thomas Allain-Chapman, head of publishing for the Archbishops’ Council. They also talk about the return of the #FollowTheStar Christmas campaign and how parishes can get involved. Adrian Harris says: “Digital . . . is not, for us, an end in itself. . . However innovative we are, at the heart we gather as the Body of Christ, and we want to do that by encouraging people into one of our churches.” 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 sudden fall of the Berlin Wall, on 9 November 1989, was an iconic and decisive moment that marked the end of the Cold War. It was, however, neither the first nor the last episode in the end of Com­munism in Eastern Europe. The Revd Alexander Faludy is an Anglican priest who holds dual British and Hungarian nationality, and lives in Budapest, where he is presently pursuing legal studies. Dr Anna Rowlands is the St Hilda Associate Professor of Catholic Social Thought & Practice in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. On this week's podcast, they discuss their memories of the momentous events of 1989 and reflect on the impact that they had on Europe. Dr Rowlands visited Berlin on a school trip shortly after the initial fall of the wall, as the city was beginning to experience the euphoria of unification. "That made an enormous impact on me,” she says. "I think really it was my political awakening." Fr Alex says: "It was the first political thing I remember, but for slightly unusual reasons, because my family were Hungarian refugees during the Cold War. My grandparents were very courageous Social Democrat opposition journalists, my grandfather had spent three years in a political prisoners camp doing a forced labour sentence — on a starvation diet for much of that time. . . "I remember seeing my father cry for the first time, because his father could go home from exile. The exile that was the foundational and framing fact of all of our lives." In a fascinating conversation, they reflect on, among other matters, the way in which Roman Catholicism in Eastern Europe was shaped by the legacy of the Cold War, and the rise of Christian nationalist governments in countries such as Hungary and Poland. Alexander Faludy has written this week's cover feature for the Church Times on the events leading up to and including the fall of the Berlin Wall. You can also listen to the Church Times Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms. 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

Theology Slam – the competition that seeks young voices on theology and the contemporary world – will return in 2020. The competition, which was launched last year, is organised jointly by the Church Times, SCM Press, the Community of St Anselm, and the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC). It is open to anyone aged 18 to 30, lay or ordained, and consists of a qualifying round and a live final. In the qualifying round, applicants are asked to write 500 words on one of 12 contemporary issues, which include Theology and race; Theology and Celebrity; and Theology and Disability (full list below). Alongside the 500 words, applicants are also asked to submit a short video, introducing who they are and why they are interested in the topic. Entries open today (Friday 1 November) and the deadline is 11.59 p.m. on 5 January 2020. The final will take place on 26 March at St John’s Hoxton, in London. On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talk to last year’s winner, Hannah Malcolm, who will be on the judging panel at the next Theology Slam. After that, you can hear excerpts from the finalists talks at the first Theology Slam final. They are Hannah Barr on Theology and the MeToo movement; Sara Prats on Theology and Mental Health; and Hannah Malcolm on Theology and the environment. For more information and to find out how to apply, visit churchtimes.co.uk/theology-slam. PHOTO CREDIT: STEFANO CAGNONI

This week, Madeleine Davies interviews Rachel Mann about her new book In the Bleak Midwinter: Advent and Christmas with Christina Rossetti. It is among a crop of books for advent reviewed in this Friday’s Church Times (25 October). In the Bleak Midwinter is published by Canterbury Press at £12.99 (Church Times Bookshop £11.70).

As the year 2000 beckoned, the Church of England decided that it would mark the Millennium by distributing thousands of yew trees across England. Every parish that requested one would get one. Twenty years after the distribution of 700 ‘Millennium Yews’, efforts are under way to track their upward progress. Ed Thornton talks to Madeleine Davies about the story, which you can also read about in this week’s paper. Plus, the Statistics for Mission 2018 report has just been published. Madeleine tells us what’s in it - including new statistics about enquiry and “Christian basics” courses, and youth work.