What Rowan Williams gets wrong about democracy
Rowan Williams used his Reith lecture on religious liberty to make a plea to religious believers: don’t be afraid of…
It’s nonsense to say we are no longer a ‘Christian country’
According to the census, British Christianity is having a disastrous century. In the 2001 census, a clear majority of people in…
Sam Bankman-Fried and the twilight of the ‘Effective Altruists’
Crypto whizzkid Sam Bankman-Fried has come a cropper. His $16 billion (£13 billion) fortune vanished overnight last week after FTX, the crypto exchange he…
Don’t condemn the Church of England for its stance on gay marriage
The Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, has come out in favour of gay marriage – the first senior bishop to…
A.N. Wilson and the ‘aesthetic’ relationship to religion
My first Spectator article, 21 years ago, was a rebuke to the religious attitude of certain public intellectuals whom I…
The esoteric creed of King Charles
Our new king is not, by normal standards, an important intellectual. But it would be churlish to dismiss his thinking…
The Archbishop of Canterbury has risen to the occasion
Archbishop Justin Welby has done a good job of relating the Queen’s virtues to her Christian faith. This is no…
What Philip Larkin can teach us about depression
A couple of years ago I taught The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin to some A-level students. In the last class they summed…
Where does Justin Welby stand on same-sex marriage?
Justin Welby has made a valiant attempt to placate both sides of the Anglican divide. He has insisted that the…
My Sally Rooney conversion
I tried to dislike the writing of Sally Rooney. But I failed. I retain some resistance to Sally Rooney the…
Is Channel 4's sex obsession really a 'public service'?
Is Channel 4 a public service broadcaster that should be saved from privatisation? Today’s Queen’s Speech, which lays the groundwork…
Dostovesky and Putin’s useful idiots
When I was 17 I heard the name Dostovesky, and was enthralled. Just the name felt so glamorously intellectual, so…
The trouble with Putin's Christian Orthodoxy
If you are worried about the uncertain fate of democracy in today’s world, what should you do? Become a human…
Divided, we stand
Anglicans need to agree to disagree
A Christmas prayer
Dear God, Please help me to keep it together this Christmas. For it is a testing time as well as…
Why I’m paying my daughter to go to church
Why I’m bribing my daughter to get confirmed
Does ‘white privilege’ exist?
On Wednesday Radio 4 aired a programme called White Mischief,which promised to trace ‘where whiteness came from and how its…
Why can't men write about sex?
Not long ago I was a regular Tinder user. Having heard that gingers were romantically incompatible, I decided to mix…
Can we talk about Emma Raducanu's Christianity?
I’ve just been looking at photographs of Emma Raducanu again, this time focusing on her upper chest. She usually wears…
The Church of England is missing a trick on climate change
Justin Welby urges us, echoing Deuteronomy, to ‘choose life’, so that our children may live. It is an apt use…
The fight for the future of the Church of England
The fight for the future of the Church of England
Christmas raises the most basic political question
A few years ago, around this time of year, I overheard a nice exchange in a charity shop (I was…
I'm bored of Martin Amis
To say that Martin Amis exemplifies the elevation of style over substance is like saying that Donald Trump is a…
Will churches open their doors as lockdown eases?
The grumbling of high church clergy should now lessen a bit. They were complaining, in some cases furiously, about the…
How Christians feel at Christmas
Imagine being in love with someone who ignores you eleven months of the year, then suddenly seems really into you.…
