BY ANDREW MILNE ‘What is Truth?’ Pontius Pilate said at the trial of Christ. Pilate appears in all four gospels. Traditionally, the church has expressed a certain sympathy for the hapless Prefect of Judea. What is Truth, indeed? The question is apposite to our own time when truth is widely regarded as subjective. This means truth can be whatever you want it to be. What is … Continue reading The Way and the Truth
BY SEAN WALSH In Season 3 of Breaking Bad, two low-level, sci-fi-obsessed and endearingly hapless addicts and meth dealers, Badger and Skinny Pete (not their real names), infiltrate a 12-Step recovery group, intending to use the “share time” to promote their uniquely pure, trademark-blue “product”. The scheme is misconceived, not least because the healing space generated and curated by 12-Step groups is not controllable. Certainly not … Continue reading Breaking Bad and the Strange Culture of 12-Step Recovery
BY SEAN WALSH Jesus had a mischievous side. The hapless Simon Peter was almost always the foil, on one occasion even being “invited” to take a walk on a lake (see Matthew 14:28 if you don’t believe me). I don’t routinely compare myself to the first Pope. That said, I was recently presented with a comparable challenge. The results were mixed, and I was, wrongly … Continue reading My Accidental Confession
BY ROGER WATSON Why anyone would go to see Conclave, a film about the secretive proceedings behind locked doors at the Vatican – thus ‘conclave’ – in the election of a new Pope, is unclear. But they have, in their droves. It is a box office success netting $75 million worldwide and scoring 93% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and 86% on their Popcornmeter of … Continue reading Conclave
BY MAX WALLER I’ve pretty much given up on the idea of traditional Christianity making a comeback in England—not that I have any real grounds to call for its return, given that my connection to the faith has been limited mostly to singing hymns in school assemblies and later falling in love with Western sacred music dedicated to praising God, such as Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and … Continue reading Nation of Aslan
BY STEWART SLATER Educating in a few short years a Prime Minister who resigned in disgrace from the highest office in the land and, later, from Parliament, and the first Archbishop of Canterbury to fall on his pectoral cross, there was obviously something in the water at Eton back then. For it will not have escaped your notice that Justin Welby has resigned to take … Continue reading Protecting the Work
BY EFFIE DEANS We need to make a distinction between the believer and what he believes. It is wrong for me to discriminate against Jewish people or to act in a hateful way towards them. But I ought to be allowed to say what I please about the beliefs of Judaism. I can point out for instance that I doubt that God parted the Red … Continue reading Equality Before the Law
BY ALEX STORY Religion is the cornerstone on which all civilisations are built. From that foundation spring culture, laws, social habits, and morality. A culture ripped from its religious soil dies. With that in mind and for that reason, Great Britain is perishing before our very eyes. With the ostentatious Ramadan celebrations in London, the call to prayer organised by Humza Yousaf First Minister of … Continue reading The Cornerstone Matters
BY MICHAEL HURLEY As a small part of the world is vaguely aware, the Catholic Church is preparing for a “synod” (a fancy term for a meeting of bishops), amorphously called the “Synod on Synodality.” Since the publication in June of Instrumentum Laboris, the working document for the first session of the synod coming this October, the perennial grumbling within the Catholic commentariat has reached … Continue reading It’s Time We Stopped Judging the Divorced & Remarried
BY ROGER WATSON We have just entered the season of Lent, forty days during which we prepare ourselves for the zenith of the Christian calendar, the Easter Triduum, when we remember the torturing and execution and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. I know that this season is upon us because Easter eggs and hot cross buns are already on display at Tesco. Of course, I … Continue reading Family Farce Day
BY ROGER WATSON With the Holy See in the grip of a South American Communist and the long but not so gradual decline of the Roman Catholic Church since the 1960s and the disaster known as the Second Vatican Council, nothing really surprises me any longer when I grit my teeth and join the faithful each Sunday morning for weekly Mass. From the caterwauling in … Continue reading Cafod Olé
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN We stumble across many weirdoes in our lives. It’s part and parcel of the interconnected environment within which we exist. In the pre-Internet era, green-inkers were relatively disempowered outliers who kept to themselves. They were Twitter-free curtain-twitchers and entirely Post-Office dependent. Nowadays all the nutters on the bus and spotty attic dwellers possess (literally) social media accounts. In 2021 ‘Care in the … Continue reading The Sacred Fox
BY QUENTIN PIGG Imagine, if you will, a group so viciously persecuted in the world that eleven of them are slain every hour of every day and yet so few of the hours in our days are devoted to the reporting of their slaughter. This is the figure that religious scholar, Todd Johnson, alleges to be true in the case of Christians across the world. … Continue reading Eleven Christians
BY ALEXIA JAMES The cases of antisemitism right at the heart of Momentum’s leadership are infamous. The cases of antisemitism linked to Momentum via its members or past members are rife. This is partly because of the Hard Left’s fixation with Palestine but more to do with the bogeyman hatred the group tries to foster as part of its activism, which manifests itself in Tory … Continue reading Churches Should Ban Momentum
BY RUTH LEVINE Jews hold that just months after the people of Israel left Egypt in the year 2448 from creation (1313 BCE), they sinned by worshipping a golden calf. Moses ascended Mount Sinai and prayed to God to forgive them. After two 40-day stints on the mountain, full Divine favour was obtained. The day Moses came down the mountain (the 10th of Tishrei) was to be known forevermore as … Continue reading The BBC & Yom Kippur
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN During some rainy days of holiday this summer, I was forced to watch some Poldark episodes by my persuasive wife and I confess that I enjoyed the performance of the actor Christian Brassington as the loathsome Reverend Osborne Whitworth. Hardly what you’d expect of a Man of God, Reverend Osborne is a lecherous hypocrite and a slave to deviant thoughts. Unable to find … Continue reading The Cracked Teflon of Priests
BY JOHN ISMAEL Tariq Ramadan is a French-Swiss Muslim academic, philosopher, and writer. He is the Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at St Antony’s College and teaches at the Faculty of Theology and Religion, also at the University of Oxford. He is the director of the Research Centre of Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE), based in Doha. He also … Continue reading Where’s Tariq?
BY ASGHAR KHAN There are some in the British Muslim community and some on the Left who have been angered by the Defence Secretary’s statement to the Daily Mail this week. Gavin Williamson said: “A dead terrorist can’t cause any harm to Britain.” He told the newspaper: “I do not believe that any terrorist, whether they come from this country or any other, should ever … Continue reading Gavin Williamson’s Wise Words
BY JOHN ISMAEL On the 29th of August the BBC website published an article in response to the Times Muslim Fostering “scandal” which was titled, “My Muslim Family & Our Foster Kids”. It was copy taken from a BBC Asian Network interview with 28 year old Esmat Jeraj with Asian Network’s Nomia Iqbal as interviewer. In the article, the interviewee Jeraj describes how her family … Continue reading BBC Hindu “Idols” Scandal
BY ALEXIA JAMES Many accuse the Argentinian Pope Francis of socialist, even communist leanings – is he either? Take a look at Francis’ body language during past meetings with foreign leaders. The people he seemed most comfortable with were the socialists and communists, even though they stand accused of murdering and torturing their own people while espousing Marxist political strategies which have caused economic mayhem … Continue reading St Francis of Hypocrisy?
