Church of england

Sunday marks what would have been the 100th birthday of Kenneth Williams. It’s tempting to try to imagine what he would have been like had he lived longer, though the absurdity of our age might have been beyond even his acid observation. That’s perhaps the most interesting aspect of Williams: he can’t be imagined in the present day at all. As recent as his lifetime was, it was one so utterly bound by the 20th century as to feel distant. How so? Well, his critics would point to the Carry On films. A young and serious acting talent, coached in Shakespeare by Olivier no less, was wasted, so the argument

In February 1974, a frustrated Ted Heath, unable to achieve anything in government against constant opposition by the mighty trade unions, called an election. One basic question was front and centre of the campaign: ‘Who governs Britain?’ Soon the answer came back: ‘Not you, mate.’ In fact, it would take Margaret Thatcher’s victory to clip the power of the unions – but only after enormous political and economic risks were taken. With the collapse of public infrastructure, a lingering sense of decline, and Britain looking embarrassed (and embarrassing) on the world stage, comparisons to the 1970s abound today. Another similarity is the presence of an all-powerful caste. This time, however,

After my grandmother died a few years ago, we couldn’t bring ourselves to get rid of most of her possessions. What had started as a storage room at my parents’ house quickly morphed into a living, breathing pile. It gradually invaded the spare bedroom and was making encroachments into my mother’s study. Answering the call of nature at night became fraught with terror, lest the pile had become sentient and would drag me into its clutches in the small hours of the morning. It was like living in a cross between Storage Wars and a Stephen King novel. There was a whole box devoted to Diana and Charles plates and

It came to pass in 2020 that a decree went out from the General Synod that all the Church of England must be carbon net-zero by 2030. And this ruling was first made when Justin Welby was Archbishop of Canterbury. And all went to have a good hard look at their church heating systems, every one into his own vestry cupboard… How easy it is to issue a decree from on high; and how hard it is for the people on the ground to have to deal with its consequences. The miscreants now have to rip out the new gas boilers and replace them with an eco alternative One of

I have recently begun training for holy orders in the Church of England. I know, they’re getting desperate. My motivation for wanting to be a priest is selfish. I want more joy in my life. You might feel that joy is to be found in extreme sports, or pop concerts, or snorting coke from the midriffs of hookers. But I think you mean pleasure. Joy is deeper, linked to a sense of the goodness of existence. It seems to me that joy is to be found in doing cultural things. I don’t mean going to plays or art galleries; I mean cultural things that are very participatory and democratic. Things

Unsustainable energy Sir: Sir Richard Dearlove (‘Net cost’, 22 November) succinctly sums up the views of many of us who cannot understand the whole lemming-like net-zero policy. This leap into the abyss was precipitated by Boris Johnson and the torch is now carried by Ed Miliband, who seems to have carte blanche to make matters worse. The destruction of our automobile and energy industries in terms of GDP and Treasury receipts is mindless – more so in a country producing less than 1 per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions. Interestingly, Matt Ridley’s article in the same issue (‘Star power’) gives longer-term hope regarding fusion energy generation, but it will be

Rough justice Sir: The Church Commissioners’ plan to establish a £100 million (rising to £1 billion) fund for ‘reparative justice’ is indeed ‘the most egregious example of lanyard Anglicanism’ as your leading article says (‘Laud’s prayer’, 11 October). It is deeply flawed in conception, substance and process – and is especially ill-judged when parish clergy are atrociously paid and many parishes face an existential crisis. The critique made by the Policy Exchange paper ‘The Case Against Reparations’, written by Professor Lord Biggar, Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert and me, is reasonably well known. What is less appreciated is that since at least May last year, the Commissioners have known they have

Whatever you think of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, there can be no doubt about this: she firmly backs the Church of England’s current official teaching on sex and marriage. Indeed, as the bishop who was recently in charge of updating that teaching, it might be the case that she upholds it more completely and sincerely than anyone else. Perhaps some readers would like to be reminded what the Church’s current official teaching on sex and marriage actually is. It is this: marriage remains the preserve of heterosexuals. Homosexuals may have their unions blessed in church. Um… that’s it. That’s all that can be said for sure. What

Moscow mule Sir: While visiting Russia, James Delingpole learned from the patriarchate’s press officer that under communism the Russian Church wasn’t allowed to exist (‘Letter from Moscow’, 27 September). However, that doesn’t accord with my own experience of being in the USSR during the Brezhnev era. As a student, I visited the 14th-century Zagorsk monastery complex just outside Moscow one Sunday and was spellbound by the heavenly chant of the Orthodox liturgy which lifted my soul. The church was full of babushkas as well as younger believers crossing themselves and kissing the icons. For all his faults and human-rights violations, Brezhnev, unlike Vladimir Putin, had not been indicted by the

This column comes to you from Auckland Castle, former palace and hunting lodge of the Prince Bishops of Durham. We, the Rectory Society, are here by kind permission of its saviour, Jonathan Ruffer, celebrating our 20th anniversary. Jonathan rescued the castle not from the heathen but from the Church of England. The last Anglican bishop to inhabit it was Justin Welby, in his brief year at Durham before being translated to Canterbury, but it had been run down for many years before that. Bishop Auckland is in one of the poorest parts of England but it did not occur to the Church authorities to use the heritage of this astonishing