You can tell a bit about someone based on their preconceptions about Peter Thiel. Whether the reflexive response to the name is “malign far-Right plutocrat”, “philanthropic saviour of all that is good” or “who?” is a reasonably reliable guide to …
Where is the moral case for abortion?
The question of when human life begins is like the question of when human life ends: it is a question of values not science. Interviewed by NBC, a woman stood before the Supreme Court building in the US with her …
The rise of Christian Nationalism
“The state should not infringe on the church — that’s what the First Amendment says,” thundered Pastor Ken Peters to his congregation at the Patriot Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, last Sunday, as well as those watching at home on Facebook. …
Why Bishops should be political
Good Friday coincided with Passover this year. We didn’t have a proper Seder service because we had just moved house and everything we needed was hidden in unpacked boxes. But at least we had all our possessions with us. For …
Have I abandoned my flock?
I will be baptising four new Christians on Easter morning: two adults, two children. One of the adults asked me about their baptism preparation last week. Traditionally, that is what Lent is for — a period of fasting and reflection …
Was Jesus a revolutionary?
Easter is the time when Jesus Christ is said to have risen from the dead, having hung on a cross for six hours between two thieves. We are told that one of the thieves was saved, which Samuel Beckett described …
The future of Anglicanism is African
The future of the Christian religion in England is not to be found in the southern shires or the former mill towns of the North. Out there, the voice and tenor of the Bible is a thinning force, a hoarse …
This isn’t a war between good and evil
The images emerging from Bucha are haunting. Dead civilians line the streets, many with their hands bound behind their backs. They are the victims of systematic executions, left to rot before the Russians decided to retreat.
Reports of such atrocities …
Why we fear dead bodies
It is almost exactly two years ago that we were first asked to stand on our doorsteps to clap for NHS staff. As the weeks went on, the target of our applause was widened: to healthcare workers and emergency services, …
Atheists have an evil problem
“Jesus descends in dread array to judge the scarlet whore”. This was Charles Wesley’s hot take on the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. It was a terrible response even by 18th-century standards. Tens of thousands of people were swallowed up by the …
Boris must eat the rich
I suppose, if you really wanted to stretch a point, Marie Antoinette’s proposal to “let them eat cake” could be cast as an early expression of the whole levelling up agenda. After all, that famous phrase could be twisted to …
Witchcraft isn’t subversive
Once the bankers have gone home for the night, the City of London becomes a mysterious place. It evinces secrecy and subversion; you can feel the presence of something arcane beneath the day-to-day custom and commerce of the City.
It …
René Girard’s apocalypse is now
“The apocalypse,” declared René Girard, “has already begun.” The most influential philosopher in the world today was on a messianic mission before his death seven years ago.
Since then, his work has found acclaim far beyond the academy: business gurus, …
Ernst Jünger: our prophet of anarchy
With its modern themes of detachment and alienation, the recent revival of Ernst Jünger’s early work by the internet dissident Right is an understandable urge. When I was a younger man, Jünger’s Storm of Steel, his hallucinatory account of …
The myth of ‘pagan’ Christmas
In AD 932 the most powerful ruler in Britain spent Christmas on the edge of Salisbury Plain. Never before had a unitary kingdom been fashioned out of all the various realms of the Angles and the Saxons. Never before had …