Irreverend: Faith and Current Affairs

The original team return this week. Revs Tom and Jamie review the very serious COP26 conference, paying particular attention to Justin Welby's rather extreme comments on the subject of climate catastrophe, Prince Charles' somewhat megalomaniacal suggestions and the mysterious climate confessional which invites delegates to confess their climate sins. We also comment on the nudge culture...

Responding to the COP26 event in Glasgow this November, Irreverend hosts and Church of England vicars Revd Dr Jamie Franklin and Revd Daniel French are joined by Senior Minister of the Tron Church, Glasgow, Revd Dr William Phillip to discuss the climate change movement. Should Christians support the climate agenda or critique it? What does the Bible and Christian tradition have to say that is rele...

In this very special episode, Revd Dr Jamie Franklin sat down with Joe Boot of the Ezra Institute for Cultural Reformation. We discussed the relationship between Church and State and how it applies in the age of Covid-19, the need for Christians to rediscover a fully-orbed world and life view, the climate change agenda and the emerging technocratic authoritarianism. For more information on Joe Boo...

In this week's episode, Reverends Tom Pelham and Jamie Franklin sit down with Christine Padgham. Christine is host of the Coronastories podcast and blogs at https://informscotland.uk on Covid statistics. She is also a member of the Health Advisory and Recovery Team or HART which provides medical and scientific commentary on the Covid crisis. As well as other things, we talk about why it seems...

Should the Church of England be more elusive than inclusive? Is the Church shutting out social and cultural conservatives in their millions because of an enthusiasm to draw in political progressives, SJWs? Rev Daniel French explores these questions and reads an article he wrote in the Mallard online magazine last week which has travelled well online and caused some discussion.  https://mallarduk.c...

Revs Tom and Jamie sit down to discuss a sad week which saw the brutal murder of one of the few great men in public life, Sir David Amess. We discuss the political, religious and cultural issues that this event raises, and we celebrate something of the goodness of the man himself. We also look at an article by Tom Woodman which confesses that he cannot bring himself to have children because of the...

In this week's episode, Revs Jamie and Tom sit down to talk about all the various things that we normally do, including this week Sajid Javid and Nadhim Zahawi writing a letter to encourage children to "come forward" for the vaccine after about only 10% have so far, the importance of touch and embodied community and how can the Church truly recover after its disastrous response to C...

Join Revs Tom, Daniel and Jamie for the one-year anniversary special of Irreverend: Faith and Current Affairs! Our Scripture is taken from Philippians 4:8-9. We reflect on a year's worth of pertinent, theological analysis of current events through the medium of the "Irreverend Awards", a full list of the winners (and losers) is below these notes, but, please, don't spoil the su...

For this special episode of the podcast, Rev'd Dr Jamie Franklin is joined by Dr Ali Haggett, academic and practitioner in the areas of mental health and well-being, and Rev'd Dr William Philip, former cardiologist and senior minister of the Tron Church, Glasow, to discuss the neglect and abuse of residents in the UK's care homes. Restriction of visitors, blanket do not resuscitate...

After a discussion of the fuel shortage crisis and the superiority of Medieval civilisation to our own, Revs Jamie, Daniel and Tom move on to a consideration of the Covid-19 narrative as a type of religious phenomenon, the role of sin in the modern Church conversation and the topic of biblical conspiracy theories! Our Scripture this week is taken from Psalm 2. Please consider supporting the King A...

Church of England revs Tom and Jamie sit down to talk about the big events of the day. We review the worrying level of vitriol that is being directed towards the unvaccinated in the media and look at a recent argument made by The Gospel Coalition that vaccine passports should be allowed in churches. In a more edifying section, we read about the story of St Charles Borromeo, whose response to the l...

In this special episode, Rev Jamie Franklin sits down with Director of Brephos Ministries, Dave Brennan. Brephos is a ministry that helps Christians and churches to think through the issue of abortion and related challenges. In this conversation, Jamie and Dave discuss the Covid-19 vaccines specifically with regards to the use of human embryonic tissue in their development and testing. What has th...

Church of England vicars Daniel and Jamie sit down to talk about: totalitarianism in Scripture and in our world today; the Covid vaccinations being approved for 12-15 year-olds by Chris Whitty; recent confusion over vaccine passports; and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's recent foray into world events, 'A Joint Message for the Protection of Cr...

Church of England vicars Tom and Jamie sit down to talk about the week's news, including: Sajid Javid says that parental consent will not be needed for the jab rollout for 12-15s after the decision on the jabs was re-delegated to the Chief Medical Officer because the JCVI did not recommend it; the government denies that there will be a lockdown this October, despite somebody leaking the possi...

Revs Daniel and Tom are away this week, so this is Rev Jamie with a quick update on a few things and some thoughts on the recent Terence Malick film A Hidden Life . If you'd like something to listen to in lieu of the pod this week, have a look at Jamie's recent conversation with Ralph from Right Reaction, "For a Christian Defence" . Also of interest might be Rev Jamie's re...

Vicars Tom Pelham and Jamie Franklin sit down to discuss the latest news from a theological and scriptural perspective. Our opening Scriptures are Zechariah 3 and Romans 5:1-12: the message of the righteousness of Christ given to unworthy sinners. We talked about the notion of vaccine passports in church and society, and we review some theological arguments that have been made against "vaccin...

Revs Tom and Jamie sit down to discuss the big stories of the day, beginning with the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan. What has this got to do with Christianity? Quite a lot actually. Further, we review madness north of the wall as the benign leader of People's Republic of Scotland seeks to makes extraordinary Covid powers, well, a bit more ordinary and teachers are told that th...

Revs Tom and Jamie return to talk about: A-Levels results and why our education secretary won't reveal his; Libertarianism, Freedom and Collectivism; the coming climate change apocalypse; the ethics of vaccinating 16 and 17 year-olds, the axing of dissenting advisor Robert Dingwall and a return to the issue of the United Beach Mission's banning of unvaccinated volunteers; and vaccine pas...

Something a bit different for this podcast extra. A special episode in which Rev Jamie is joined by his better half, Lorna, and Catholic blogger and mother of four Zoe Willis to talk about home education, motherhood and parenting in the age of madness through which we are currently living. Among the topics discussed were: Why Homeschooling?; Homeschooling as cultural memory and resistance to total...

In this special episode, Rev Dr Jamie Franklin speaks with some of the co-authors and principal signatories of the Open Letter from Christian Leaders to the Prime Minister Concerning Vaccine Passport Proposals from April 2020. In light of the announcements in July that Vaccine Passports are set to become a reality in nightclubs and other crowded venues, we discuss the three main points of our orig...

Back this week with Revs Jamie and Daniel tackling the racism crisis in football, the COVID crisis in humanity and the global warming crisis in the world! What will become of us? If you are a Christian leader in a church or Christian organisation, please sign our letter opposing vaccine passports. Do share also whoever you are! - https://vaccinepassportletter.wordpress.com/ Notices: Thanks to our...

We're off this week, so to keep you going, here is Rev Jamie's near two-hour long conversation with Carbon Mike from back in November 2020. Carbon Mike is a software engineer, conservative, social critic and the host of the Dangerous Space podcast . He describes himself as a "pilgrim" when it comes to faith, meaning that he's not quite there but he is very sympathetic. He...

Irreverend reaches 40 this week. To mark the occasion, Revs Daniel, Jamie and Tom review the recent government edict that nightclubs and "crowded venues" will from September only be frequented by the double-vaccinated. We feature an article on biopolitics and the biosecurity state from American priest and scholar Peter Leithart. We also talk about the shocking actions of a vicar in the C...

Revs Jamie and Daniel get together to discuss the fallout from England's final loss at Euro 2020: Is the UK systemically racists or is this the work of Chinese Twitter Bots? We also talk about the latest movements towards a Covid-19 biostate in England and much more so in France. We cover latest developments in Church of England news, including a large "Thank You NHS" flag draped up...

Special episode in which Tom and Jamie take on some very interesting questions: Can I be a Christian without the Church? How do we cope with all the pain and suffering in the world? What about that Marian theology? Is there a rapture? Is there salvation outside of Christ? If you would like to send in questions for a future episode, please email us as irreverendpod@gmail.com! Notices: Thanks to our...