Christianity
Mission impossible? The C of E’s attempt to woo new members
If you work for the Church of England in any capacity, from Archbishop of Canterbury to parish flower-arranger, how do…
China’s new way to drown out the Christmas message? A sea of tat
If you think capitalism has blinged up Christmas, you should see what the Communists are doing to it. At this…
Reza Aslan doesn’t fear God. But should he fear his fellow Muslims?
Eating human brains, burying one’s face in dead people’s ashes and publicly deriding the president of the United States as…
The Spectator’s Notes
‘Persecuted and Forgotten?’ is the name of the latest report by Aid to the Church in Need. Unfortunately, there is…
Blame the grown-ups for the safe-space tribe
A car driver ploughs into a bunch of people outside the Natural History Museum in London and lefties are furious…
Christianity triumphant – and destructive
In the late years of Empire, and early days of Christianity, there were monks who didn’t wash for fear of…
Keeping faith
For Church of England vicars who worry less about what they will preach on Sunday than whether there will be…
The roots of witchcraft
Until the mid-1960s many historians believed witchcraft was a pre-Christian pagan fertility ritual, witches worshipping the Horned God, whose consort…
Losing our religion
Sir James MacMillan’s European Requiem, performed at the Proms on Sunday, isn’t about Brexit. The composer had to make this…
My fears about the new ‘extremism commission’
The Egyptian-born Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi was once invited to speak in this country — and the row which developed…
Mixed blessings
Japan is the only developed country where people openly espouse two distinct and incompatible religions at the same time —…
In praise of Advent
The first Sunday of Advent is 27 November this year. For those of us who prefer Advent services to Christmas…
Britain really is ceasing to be a Christian country
A landmark in national life has just been passed. For the first time in recorded history, those declaring themselves to…
Breaking the commandments on Moses’s mountain
A medieval party of 800 Armenians at the top of Mount Sinai suddenly found themselves surrounded by fire. Their pilgrim…
The slow (and ignominious) death of the British funeral
I mourn for the traditional ceremony
Let’s vote ‘in’ to renew the EU, says Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor
There is more to the idea of Europe than narrow economic considerations. The Remain side needs to say so
The beginning of the end for Pope Francis
What the Pope didn’t just say about divorce
Gloriana and the Sultan — England’s unlikely alliance
The idea for a mechanical cock was never going to work. In 1595 the English ambassador to Constantinople, Edward Barton,…
The price of a cathedral – and how deans pay it
Deans are facing tough decisions to keep their beautiful buildings in good order
Following Jesus’s followers
In his new book Apostle Tom Bissell has an advantage over writers who go looking for Jesus: he can start…
Hell made fun – the joy of Hieronymus Bosch
The 20th-century painter who called himself Balthus once proposed that a monograph about him should begin with the words ‘Balthus…
On the trail of Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca is today acknowledged as one of the foundational artists of the Renaissance. Aldous Huxley thought his ‘Resurrection’…
What conservative gay Christians want
Conservative homosexual Christians want something more radical than marriage
Howard Jacobson's Shylock is full of mercy and compassion
Howard Jacobson’s novelistic riff on The Merchant of Venice for the Hogarth Shakespeare project turns, unsurprisingly, on what makes some…
Mark Zuckerberg should be applauded — whatever his motive
The Egyptian driver of a London minicab said almost nothing during our journey but dropped me off at my destination…
