The Church Times Podcast

THE COP26 climate-change conference begins in Glasgow, on Sunday (31 October). So this seemed like a good time to revisit a special podcast that we posted a year ago: Everybody Now, a podcast about what it means to be human on the threshold of a global climate emergency, in a time of systemic injustice and runaway pandemics. Scientists, activists, farmers, poets, and theologians talk bravely and f...

This week, Joe Ware, senior climate journalist at Christian Aid, is on the podcast to talk about the UN climate-change conference COP26, which starts in Glasgow at the end of this month. He has written a preview of COP26 for this week’s issue of the Church Times (22 October), as part of a series of features on the climate crisis. He has also written an in-depth report in our news section on how cl...

Peter Stanford returns to the podcast this week to talk about his new book, If These Stones Could Talk: The history of Christianity in Britain and Ireland through Twenty Buildings (Hodder & Stoughton). It’s available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £16. A press release from Hodder says of the book: “In exploring the stories of these buildings that are still so much a...

On the podcast this week, Ed Thornton talks to Andrew Graystone about his book Bleeding for Jesus: John Smyth and the cult of Iwerne camps (DLT (Books, 1 October). The book is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for £11.69. “I've drawn on a very wide range of sources to produce really quite a detailed account of what has happened,” Andrew says. “But I've tried to weave it together into...

On this week’s podcast, Lucy Winkett talks about her new book Reading the Bible with your Feet (Canterbury Press): a collection of her sermons from recent years, some of which were preached during the pandemic. She is in conversation with Chine McDonald, a writer, broadcaster, and head of public engagement at Christian Aid. It was recorded at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature last...

On the podcast this week, the Revd Jarel Robinson-Brown talks about his book, "Black, Gay, British, Christian, Queer: The Church and the famine of grace." It’s published by SCM Press and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £15.99. He is in conversation with the Revd Winnie Varghese, who is the Rector of St Luke’s Episcopal Church, Atlanta. It was recorded at an onl...

On the podcast this week, Madeleine Davies interviews the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has recently returned from sabbatical. They spoke in his study in Lambeth Palace about a range of topics, including: what he did during his sabbatical; his time spent volunteering as a hospital chaplain during the pandemic; the future of the parish (“There is no conspiracy to abolish the parish”); church-plants...

On this week’s podcast, Dr Mark Vernon talks about his new book, Dante’s Divine Comedy: A guide for the spiritual journey (Angelico Press)(Church Times Bookshop £16.20). This year marks 700 years since Dante’s death, and this week’s Church Times (10 September) includes features by Robin Ward and Alexander Faludy, as well as several reviews of books published to mark the anniversary. In a review of...

On this week’s podcast, there’s a chance to listen again (or, perhaps, for the first time) to Sarah Lothian’s interview with Susanna Clarke about her long-awaited second novel, Piranesi. The book has just been published in paperback and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £8.09. Dr Jane Williams, the McDonald Professor in Christian Theology at St Mellitus College, chose Piranesi as her...

On this week’s podcast, Ed Thornton talks to the writer — and General Synod member — James Cary about his new book The Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer (SPCK). An extract from the book is published in this week’s Church Times (27 August), and the book is available to buy from the Church House Bookshop. “The first thing you notice when you hear scripture read out loud really well by an actor, th...

This week, Ed Thornton talks to the Revd Mark Nam, the founder of the Tea House, a new national network of C of E clergy of Chinese heritage. As the Tea House was launched on Monday, he said that its aim was “to support and empower clergy with Chinese-heritage in the Church of England by promoting their presence in all structures of the Church, creating connections and providing information and re...

This week’s podcast provides a chance to listen again, or perhaps for the first time, to an interview with Ysenda Maxtone Graham, which was first posted in July last year. She talks about her book British Summer Time Begins: The school summer holidays 1930-1980 (Little, Brown), which is now available in paperback from the Church Times Bookshop for £9.99. She also talks about holidays and churchgoi...

THIS week, Ed Thornton talks to Carolyn Skinner, Events Chaplain at Sports Chaplaincy UK, about how chaplains support Olympic athletes. At this year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo, Covid restrictions mean that chaplains have been prevented from entering the Olympic Village. Carolyn explains how they have had to adapt to provide virtual pastoral support (News, 23 July). Carolyn also considers the growing...

TODAY (30 July) is World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. On the podcast this week, Ed Thornton talks to Esther Swaffield-Bray, Director of England at International Justice Mission UK (IJM), about the global campaign to end slavery and human trafficking. She talks about IJM works in partnership with police, local authorities, and churches in different countries to rescue victims of slavery and...

This week, Ed Thornton is joined by Corin Pilling, UK director of Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries, a charity that seeks to raise awareness of mental-health issues in the Church. Corin talks about how he has navigated the challenges of lockdown, and explains what Sanctuary is doing to help churches and communities. Sanctuary UK this week launched a new app that features the “Together Again” conv...

THIS week, Ed Thornton is joined by Church Times cartoonist Dave Walker to talk about his new book on cycling: From A to B: A cartoon guide to getting around by bike (Bloomsbury). The book is on special offer at the Church Times Bookshop for £10.99. The book contains 100 full-page cartoons about the delights and challenges of cycling. The publisher describes it as a “cartoon manifesto for pedal-po...

England are through to the final of the Euros, after beating Denmark 2-1, in extra time, during a tense and thrilling semi-final match at Wembley Stadium on Wednesday night. What is it about Gareth Southgate’s approach to leadership that is inspiring the players to perform, and what lessons might there be for the Church? What does the humility of England’s players show about the link between chara...

On the podcast this week, Rowan Williams talks about his new book, Looking East in Winter: Contemporary thought and the Eastern Christian tradition (Bloomsbury Continuum) (Books, 25 June). It is available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the special price of £16. Lord Williams is in conversation with the RC Bishop of Trondheim, in Norway, Dr Erik Varden OCSO, who is a former Abbot of Moun...

On this week’s podcast, Mark Oakley explores the role of lament in the midst of a pandemic, and how the work of R. S. Thomas can help us to find a voice. His talk given last Saturday at the R. S. Thomas and ME Eldridge Society Festival, in association with the Church Times. The online festival brought together people with an appreciation of the literary and artistic works, musical compositions, pe...

This week, Ed Thornton talks to the Revd Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes about her new book How to Eat Bread: 21 nourishing ways to read the Bible (Hodder & Stoughton). It's available to buy from the Church Times Bookshop for the reduced price of £10.99. “I found that over the years, I’ve continually had people coming up to me quietly asking how they should read the Bible,” she says. “There are quite...

This week, Ed Thornton talks to Church Times columnist Paul Vallely about the cut to the international aid budget, which he describes in his column this week (11 June) as an “immoral and illegal act”. Paul explains the consequences of the cut for those in the developing world, and examines this week’s efforts in Parliament to reverse it, which culminated in an emergency Commons debate on Tuesday....

On this week’s podcast, we revisit an episode from January 2020, in which Ed Thornton spoke to Dr Stephen Tomkins about his book, The Journey to the Mayflower: God’s outlaws and the invention of freedom (Hodder & Stoughton). In a review of the book, published in the Church Times in September (Books, 4 September 2020), Sarah Mortimer wrote: “Tomkins’s vivid, fast-paced prose tells the story of the...

This week, Dr Sanjee Perera interviews Chine McDonald about her new book, God Is Not a White Man: And other revelations (Hodder & Stoughton). The book explores what it means to be black and a woman in majority white spaces where black women are silently exiting the church, no longer able to tolerate casual racism, colonialist narratives, and lack of urgency on issues of racial justice. The Presidi...

This week, the poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama reads some of his sonnets and considers its the way in which sonnets can offer “a new gaze, a new point of view”. The talk was given on Saturday at an online event, “Send My Roots Rain: A poetry retreat,” organised by the Church Times and Canterbury Press. Tickets for a recording of the whole event are available at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/ev...

On the podcast this week, Ed Thornton talks to the Revd Helen Gheorghiu Gould, who is a member of the Interim Ministry Steering Group. She speaks about what interim ministry (IM) is, why it works for some parishes — such as those navigating change or seeking healing of conflict — and what the future might hold for it. Until March, Ms Gheorghiu Gould was interim-ministry adviser for Chelmsford dioc...