Church

What The Spectator taught Benjamin Franklin

14 December 2024 9:00 am

Christmas came early this year. No, I’m not moaning about the carols that my local café started piping at the…

My rules for church readings

14 December 2024 9:00 am

It is that time of year when people in churches across the land have to face the difficult question of…

Letters: It’s time for the common cup to return to communion

26 February 2022 9:00 am

The Bull of Oman Sir: There was one significant omission in the cast of characters mentioned by Charles Moore in…

Bring back communion wine

12 February 2022 9:00 am

Don’t deny me my communion wine

The churches must stay open

26 December 2021 6:00 pm

Hooray for Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who used the one day of the year when his pronouncements are amplified by the…

Why I’m paying my daughter to go to church

30 October 2021 9:00 am

Why I’m bribing my daughter to get confirmed

The Church of England is missing a trick on climate change

9 September 2021 10:17 pm

Justin Welby urges us, echoing Deuteronomy, to ‘choose life’, so that our children may live. It is an apt use…

The challenges of being an England supporter in Italy

17 July 2021 9:00 am

  Dante’s Beach, Ravenna My fiery Italian wife Carla is not just a passionate patriot but also a devout Catholic, and…

Let hymn in: the silencing of indoor singing is senseless

12 June 2021 9:00 am

The silencing of indoor singing is senseless

‘Spiritual but not religious’: the rise of consumerism in church

3 April 2021 9:00 am

The problems with ‘Spiritual but not Religious’

In America, politics has become a form of religion

3 April 2021 9:00 am

When I finally head back to church this weekend, after a year of Covid-avoidance, it is going to feel a…

A woke church is doomed to fail

27 December 2020 6:00 pm

My church attendance leaves something to be desired and I can’t cite Bible verses for every occasion. Yet for as…

What should you charge for a virtual conference?

13 June 2020 9:00 am

From time to time, every industry must adapt to some inconvenient technological advance. Suddenly, some part of what you offer…

Will Coronavirus hasten the demise of religion - or herald its revival?

11 April 2020 9:00 am

Whenever Christianity seems all but exhausted, it bursts into life once more

Letters: Why coronavirus is so hard to investigate

4 April 2020 9:00 am

Corona mysteries Sir: John Lee highlights the issue of dying of seasonal flu vs dying of coronavirus when assessing attributable…

The psychological and economic dangers of enforced idleness

28 March 2020 9:00 am

‘Lourdes shrine closes healing pools as precaution against coronavirus,’ says a discouraging headline in the Catholic Herald. Jesus ‘made the…

Dear Mary: How can I foil a notorious place-swapper at my daughter’s wedding?

7 March 2020 9:00 am

Q. I am arranging the seating plan for my daughter’s wedding and have a problem with one of her guests…

How I found salvation in a church in Torquay

15 February 2020 9:00 am

Last Tuesday a Mistral wind blowing across the Bay of Angels jerked the plane all over the shop as it…

The touching traces of the past in church visitors’ books

15 June 2019 9:00 am

I am memorialised twice in my village church. Not in some premature lapidary way, but in the visitors’ book. The…

Our churches aren’t perfect, but if we lose them we will all be worse off

27 April 2019 9:00 am

After hearing about the massacre in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, I went to church, happily sang the word God…

The holy pedigree of cats

20 April 2019 9:00 am

It is claimed that the prophet Muhammad loved cats. His favourite was called Muezza and he would do without his…

Despite everything, America is beautiful — especially at West Point

18 November 2017 9:00 am

What is left to say after the church shooting in the Home of the Depraved? Those killed in Texas included…

Low life

30 September 2017 9:00 am

As is traditional in this village, the Chapel congregation had walked the 100 yards up the hill to unite with…

Act of faith: Sybil Thorndike as Saint Joan, c.1924, in George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Saint Joan’

Why does drama always end up sneering at religion?

5 March 2016 9:00 am

 Theo Hobson explores the enduring appeal that religion has for dramatists

Why the next Tory leader is likely to be in the ‘Leave’ camp

13 February 2016 9:00 am

Here is a thought for all those Tory MPs calculating their personal advantage in the forthcoming EU referendum: unless the…