The Church Times Podcast

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On this accompanying podcast, Dr Natalie K. Watson, who has written the Book Club essay about the book, talks to Sarah Meyrick. The book is published by Picador at £8.99 and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.09. Dr Natalie K. Watson is a theologian, writer, and editor, living in Peterboro...

On the podcast this week, James Runcie talks to Sarah Meyrick about his new memoir, Tell Me Good Things: On love, death and marriage. It tells the story of his love for his late wife, Marilyn Imrie, a drama director, singer, and artist, who died of motor neurone disease (MND) in August 2020. “It’s about grief, and love. And I hope it’s also about gratitude and thank fulness,” Runcie says. James Ru...

On the podcast this week, the novelist Robert Harris talks to Susan Gray about his latest book, Act of Oblivion. The novel takes place in the aftermath of the English Civil War, and swings between Restoration England and pre-Independence, Puritan New England. “A huge manhunt was started: 59 people signed the death warrant of Charles I, and there were about 30 left alive,” Harris says. “They were w...

On the podcast this week, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams considers the significance of the Christian hope of a new heaven and a new earth. The talk was delivered this week in St Martin-in-the-Fields, in central London, as part of its autumn lecture series, “What am I living for?”, in partnership with the Church Times. The next lecture in the series, on Monday 21 November, is by...

The Day That Went Missing by Richard Beard is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. On the podcast this week, he talks to Sarah Meyrick, who has written this month’s Book Club essay about the memoir. The book, which won the 2018 PEN Ackerley Award for literary autobiography, is published by Vintage and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.99. The Church Times Book Club...

On the podcast this week, Jo Swinney talks to Sarah Meyrick about A Place at The Table: Faith, hope and hospitality. The book is a joint project with Jo’s late mother, Miranda Harris, who died suddenly in October 2019. Mrs Harris and her husband, Peter, founded the Christian conservation charity A Rocha International. In an age when loneliness and isolation have reached unprecedented levels, the b...

This week’s podcast features talks from the final of the Theology Slam 2022, which took place on 27 September in St Edmund Roundhay, in Leeds, as part of the HeartEdge conference “Humbler Church, Bigger God”. 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 HeartEdge. The fir...

To Calais, In Ordinary Time by James Meek is the choice for this month's Church Times Book Club - and on the podcast this week, the author speaks to Rachel Mann (who has written this month's Book Club essay about it). The book is published by Canongate and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.99. The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Church Times Festival of Faith...

On the podcast this week, Matt Rowland Hill talks to Sarah Meyrick about his critically acclaimed memoir, Original Sins. The book tells the story of growing up as the son of an Evangelical Baptist minister in South Wales and then Leighton Buzzard, fraught with bitter family conflict and fear of damnation. After rejecting religion in his late teens , he became addicted to crack and heroin, eventual...

Dame Hilary Mantel, the acclaimed author of the Wolf Hall trilogy, has died aged 70, her publisher has announced. At an event at Launde Abbey in 2019, Dame Hilary reflected on the life of Thomas Cromwell and his place in the Reformation. The short talk that she gave at the start of the event is featured on this week’s podcast. It was recorded about a year before the publication of the final book i...

Since the death of Her Majesty the Queen last week, many have drawn attention to her deep Christian faith, which inspired dedicated, humble service during her 70-year reign. On the podcast this week, the Rt Revd Graham James, a former Bishop of Norwich, talks about the late Queen’s Christian faith and her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. He has also written an article in this wee...

A Terrible Kindness, the debut novel by Jo Browning Wroe, is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club — and on the podcast this week, the author speaks to the Revd Malcolm Doney (who has written this month’s Book Club essay about it). The book is published by Faber & Faber at £14.99 (Church Times Bookshop £13.49). Jo Browning Wroe has an MA in creative writing from the University of East...

The Revd Guy Hewitt is to be the first Racial Justice Director of the Church of England, it was announced this week. In April 2018, when he was the High Commissioner for Barbados to the United Kingdom, Mr Hewitt was interviewed on the Church Times Podcast about the campaign he led for thousands of members of the Windrush generation to be recognised as British citizens. He had written about it in t...

Night of Fire by Colin Thubron is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club — and on the podcast this week, the author is interviewed by Francis Martin (who has written this month’s Book Club essay about it). Thubron is an acclaimed travel writer and novelist, whose eight novels and 11 works of non-fiction make up an oeuvre that transports readers around the globe, and deep into the human...

On the podcast this week, Malcolm Guite talks about the faith of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the anniversary of whose death was marked on Monday (25 July). Part of the interview featured on the very first episode of the Church Times Podcast, in 2017, shortly after the publication of his book Mariner: A voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Hodder & Stoughton) (Books, 10 February 2017). “Coleridge root...

On the podcast this week, the Revd Dr Andrew Atherstone talks about his new book, Repackaging Christianity: Alpha and the building of a global brand — the first book length history of the Alpha movement. It’s published by Hodder & Stoughton and is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the reduced price of £19.80. The book “tells the remarkable story of Alpha . . . from its origins in...

On the podcast this week, Ali Campbell talks about why he believes that youth and children’s work is facing a crisis — and what can be done to support this ministry. Ali is leading a new association, Paraklesis, to support lay people in youth, children’s, and family’s ministry, which is supported by the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow. Read more about it here: https://www.churchtimes....

Widowland by C. J. Carey is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club — and on the podcast this week, Sarah Meyrick interviews the author, Jane Thynne (who wrote the book under the pen name C.J. Carey). The book was suggested by the Revd Richard Lamey, who has written this month’s Church Times Book Club essay about it. This is the third Book Club podcast, a monthly series launched recentl...

On the podcast this week, the comedian and writer Paul Kerensa talks about the expanding and lucrative world of the Christian film industry. Paul has written two features for the Church Times exploring a century’s worth of Christian film. The first part was on cinema, and the second part on the rise of streaming services. Both can be read at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk Paul is a writer of books...

On the podcast this week, Sarah Meyrick interviews the Revd Richard Coles about his new book, Murder Before Evensong — a crime novel and his first foray into fiction. The book introduces us to Coles’s clerical sleuth: the Rector of Champton, Canon Daniel Clement, who shares the rectory with his widowed mother, Audrey, and two dachshunds, Cosmo and Hilda. “I think anyone who’s been in parish minist...

The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church has been meeting in Edinburgh this week — the first time it has met in person since 2019 (although it has been set up as a hybrid gathering to include members who wish to participate over video link). Francis Martin has been there to report for the Church Times. He sat down on Saturday with the Primus, the Most Revd Mark Strange, Bishop of Moray,...

On the podcast this week, a chance to listen again (or perhaps for the first time) to the finalists’ talks in the 2021 Theology Slam, a competition to find engaging young voices who think theologically about the contemporary world. 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 Jo...

This week, we bring you the second episode of the Church Times Book Club podcast, a monthly series launched last month in association with the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature. This month, Sarah Meyrick talks to Stephen Brown, the Church Times film critic, about the title he chose for this month’s Book Club: Jack by Marilynne Robinson. It is the fourth novel in a series: the other boo...

Sir John Major, who was Prime Minister of the UK from 1992 to 1997, delivered a speech this week at the National Cathedrals Conference in Newcastle Cathedral. The conference, “Different Country, Different Church”, included talks, workshops, and debate about the direction of the Church on social, racial, and climate justice. Sir John spoke about the challenges facing the Church of England, in parti...

On the podcast this week, Tom Holland interviews Sam Wells about his latest book, Humbler Faith, Bigger God: Finding a story to live by. Their conversation was recorded at an online book launch this week. Watch the full event, including Q&A, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4iTXOWSFag. In a review of the book published in The Church Times (Books, 29 April), John Saxbee writes: “While recent boo...