Where can we find hopeful, transformative stories in the dark times we live in?  How can we read the ‘signs of the times’, and act for the good? Theologians Anna Rowlands and Paula Gooder explore the roots and universality of Catholic Social Teaching, its foundations in the Gospels, and what it can teach us about working for justice, freedom and the common good when the world seems dark. 

Dr Anna Rowlands is the St Hilda Professor of Catholic Social Thought & Practice at Durham University, and the author of 'Towards a Politics of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching for Dark Times'.  She has interests in everyday ethics and the way that academic research and teaching can engage in wider forms of public benefit and the common good.  

Dr Paula Gooder is Canon Chancellor at St Paul’s Cathedral and a leading Biblical scholar.  Her recent books include 'The Parables' and 'Women of Holy Week: An Easter Journey in Nine Stories'.

Illuminating Dark Times: Catholic Social Teaching for all (2022)

On the podcast this week, Fr Alex Frost — parish priest, best-selling author, and host of  The God Cast — talks to Madeleine Davies about the Church of England’s problems connecting with people from working-class settings.

Fr Alex has written a comment article in this week’s Church Times which argues that the C of E needs to remove barriers that make it harder for working-class people to respond to a call to ordination or lay leadership.

“I heard examples of intelligent and highly capable individuals from urban working-class settings who had struggled to break through the pomp and procedures of the Church of England,” he writes. “And of individuals dismayed by the Church and its approach to training and developing leaders who happened to drink Vimto more than they did Vin Mariani. . .

“I could relate to this. In my own journey to ordination, I had many advocates; but, for every advocate I had, there were dreadfully high hurdles put in front of me to demonstrate whether I might be worthy of fulfilling my authentic and genuine call to ordination.”

The Revd Alex Frost is the Vicar of St Matthew the Apostle, Burnley, a member of the General Synod, and host of the podcast The God Cast: https://www.youtube.com/@thegodcast5878

His book, Our Daily Bread: From Argos to the altar — a priest’s story is published by Harper North (Books, 11 November 2022). 

Madeleine Davies is Senior Writer for the Church Times.

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Fr Alex Frost on why the C of E needs working-class leaders

On the podcast this week, Elizabeth Fremantle is interviewed about her historical novel Disobedient, which is the choice for this month’s Church Times Book Club. She is in conversation with Sarah Meyrick.

Natalie K. Watson has written this month’s book club essay about Disobedient.

Disobedient is an enthralling historical novel that retells the turbulent life of the great Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi. As a young artist in Rome in the early 17th century, Artemisia outstrips her brothers and contemporary male artists in talent. Her initial struggle as a painter in a male-dominated society is nothing compared with the dramatic turn of events that occur when a handsome male tutor is employed by her father to teach her linear perspective. Her rage against the trauma that she experiences at the hands of her tutor and the way in which law and society then fail her is expressed through her art. The story centres on her motivation for creating the brutal painting Judith Slaying Holofernes — a critical point, at which her art takes a dark turn.

Disobedient is published Penguin Books at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781405952811/disobedient?vc=CT203

Sarah Meyrick is a novelist. Her latest novel is Joy and Felicity (Sacristy Press, 2021). 

The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature. https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk

Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup

Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub

Photo: © J. P. Masclet

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Book Club Podcast: Elizabeth Fremantle interviewed about her historical novel Disobedient

How do we build a movement of the people of God? If we turn to the earliest days of Christianity, we can find wisdom for how we can mobilise as Christians working for social justice today.

Drawing as well from the great Liberation Theologians including Gutierrez, Cone and Black feminist theologians, Anupama Ranawana examines the connections between climate, poverty, race and colonisation, and on the redemptive and restorative work of the Cross as good news for the planet as well as for all people. 

Dr Anupama Ranawana is a theologian and political economist with research posts at St Andrew’s University and Christian Aid. Her latest book is A Liberation for the Earth: Climate, Race and Cross.

A Liberation Movement For The Earth - May 2024

On the podcast this week, the Archbishop of York speaks about “Tuning Forks and Orchestras: Music and the mission of God.” The talk was given at the first Church Times Festival of Faith and Music in York Minster late last month (News, 3 May). It was held in partnership with the Royal School of Church Music.

“The universe and all creation are held together in harmony by the single note of the will of God, played throughout the ages by the Holy Spirit, and from which everything else is tuned,” he said. 

“The music is complex and beautiful, but it is held together, and we are part of it, only finding our meaning and fulfillment in life when we tune in with God. We are, in thise sense, the orchestra of God, each with our own contribution to make, whether we play the trombone or the kazoo.”

Photo: Duncan Lomax

https://faithandmusic.hymnsam.co.uk

https://www.rscm.org.uk

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Archbishop of York on music and the mission of God

On this week’s podcast, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, is interviewed by Francis Martin about her recent trip to Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. 

The aim of the trip was to show solidarity with the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and Christians in the region, and to understand more about the conflict and its impact on the diocese and local communities.

“I think that we need to be much more vocal and confident in calling for a permanent ceasefire . . . [the war] needs to stop and it needs to stop now,” she says. “All the hostages need to be released. There needs to be unrestricted aid allowed into Gaza. . . in order to provide the possibility to begin talking. 

"This is not just for the Palestinians, it’s also for the Israelis. I don't see any advantage in this war for Israel. Violence will only beget violence, and until at some stage the violence stops, and people begin to talk, there is no possibility of a solution.”

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Bishop of Chelmsford reflects on her visit to the Holy Land

On the podcast this week, Elizabeth Oldfield talks about her new book, Fully Alive: Tending to the soul in turbulent times. An extract from the book is published in the 24 May edition of the Church Times.

Elizabeth is a journalist, public intellectual, and the host of the podcast The Sacred, which explores the deep values of a range of guests. Until recently, she was director of the think tank Theos.

In Fully Alive, she explores what it means to live life to the full, drawing on theology, philosophy, sociology, economics, science, literature, and psychotherapy, and on her own life as a millennial feminist with a husband and two children, living with another family in an intentional community.

Reviewing the book for the Church Times (Books, 17 May), Rachel Mann writes: “I can offer no higher praise than to say that this is a book for those who found oxygen and hope in Francis Spufford’s Unapologetic; that is, for those who can’t quite give up on the Song of Love despite all the evidence to the contrary.”

Fully Alive is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £18.99 (Church Times Bookshop £15.19); 978-1-3998-1076-0.

https://www.elizabetholdfield.com

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Elizabeth Oldfield on Fully Alive: Tending to the soul in turbulent times

A talk by renowned biblical scholar and womanist theologian, the Reverend Professor Wilda C. Gafney on the story of Hannah and Peninnah in the Hebrew Bible. 
 
Professor Gafney is the Right Rev. Sam B. Hulsey Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas. She is also the author of 'A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church' and translator of its biblical selections, and 'Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to Women of the Torah and of the Throne'. She has completed the second volume of 'Womanist Midrash' focusing on women in the Former Prophets, which is expected later in 2024.

A Talk by the Revd Professor Wilda C. Gafney - May 2024

We live in times that challenge hope. Climate change, pandemic, racism, war and injustice: in the face of these, where we find hope is an urgent question.                 

Susanna Snyder says hope is not just optimism that things will turn out alright, if not in this world then in the next, but is something much more present, supple and resilient. She will explore what hope is and isn’t, its surprising relationship with anger, courage, imagination and action, and how we can cultivate and sustain it in our own lives. 

The Revd Dr Susanna Synder is Programme Leader for Short Courses, Director of Research, and Lecturer in Theology and Ethics at Sarum College in Salisbury.

What Is Hope? - June 2024

The best-selling novelist Karen Powell is the guest on this month’s Book Club Podcast, where Sarah Meyrick interviews her about Fifteen Wild Decembers, which is this month’s choice.

Michael Wheeler has written an essay about the book in the 7 June edition of the Church Times.

Fifteen Wild Decembers is a re-imagining of the life of Emily Brontë set against the wild moors of the author’s beloved Yorkshire — the same wild landscape that inspired her best-known novel Wuthering Heights. The book’s title is taken from Brontë’s poem “Remembrance”, words spoken at the graveside of her past love — “Cold in the earth — and fifteen wild Decembers”. She, too, like her lost love, ends up living a short life. In this first-person narrative, we hear Emily’s account of the domestic struggles that she has with her siblings from schooldays to adulthood, and the long journey to publication of not only her work, but that of her sisters, too.

Fifteen Wild Decembers is published by Europa Editions at £9.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.99); 978-1-78770-545-6.

Karen Powell grew up in Rochester, Kent, and now lives in North Yorkshire. 

Sarah Meyrick is a novelist. Her latest novel is Joy and Felicity (Sacristy Press, 2021). 

The Church Times Book Club is run in association with the Festival of Faith and Literature: https://faithandliterature.hymnsam.co.uk

Sign up to receive the free Book Club email once a month. Featuring discussion questions, podcasts and discounts on each book: churchtimes.co.uk/newsletter-signup

Discuss this month’s book at facebook.com/groups/churchtimesbookclub

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Book Club Podcast: Karen Powell on Fifteen Wild Decembers

Stewart McCulloch joined Christians Against Poverty (CAP) at the start of the year as its new chief executive. He previously led the charity Stewardship.

CAP’s latest report says that 46 per cent of its clients have considered taking their own life as a way out of their debt, and nine out of ten have reported having sleepless nights from financial anxiety (News, 24 May).

On the podcast this week, Francis Martin interviews Mr McCulloch about the findings of the report, as well as how the cost-of-living crisis is affecting CAP’s clients. He also explains how CAP works with churches, why the charity is unapologetically Christian in its approach, offering clients prayer and invitations to church, and he calls for politicians to do more to tackle debt.

“Our clients are our neighbours, they are friends of friends, they are the people amongst us, and so it’s a really transformative ministry in so many different ways,” he says. “It’s never just about the finances, because it’s about the social isolation, it’s about the anxiety, it’s about the spiritual poverty as well as the material poverty.”

Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader

Stewart McCulloch, chief executive of Christians Against Poverty

The official channel of St Paul's Cathedral, London.

Illuminating Dark Times: Catholic Social Teaching for all (2022)

St Paul's Cathedral

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