Gavin Ashenden

Is the mental health of Christians beginning to collapse under the strain not just of Covid and its effect on worship but also the bottomless contempt of progressive ideology for religious belief? This week's Holy Smoke is a conversation with theologian Dr Gavin Ashenden about a crisis of morale that is robbing some Christians of the will to live. One former churchgoer told me last week that he'd be perfectly happy not to wake up the next morning – and I knew exactly how he felt. But in conclusion Gavin suggests a way of breaking out of this existential nightmare. So, as they say on the BBC, if you're affected by any of the issues raised in this programme, make sure to listen through to the end.

What were Prince Philip's religious beliefs? The Duke of Edinburgh had Orthodox Christian ancestry, but how was he drawn to its traditions, was he influenced by the Queen's faith, and why was he critical of Catholicism? Damian Thompson speaks to Gavin Ashenden, chaplain to the Queen from 2008 to 2017.

The intrusion of the sanctuary of a Polish church in Balham on Good Friday by the Metropolitan police was not only a shocking event but also a deeply concerning piece of history. It can't be interpreted as a premeditated attack on Christianity – but it's evidence of the utter irrelevance of Britain's Christian heritage to the culture of liberal bureaucracy that is fast replacing it.In this week’s Holy Smoke episode, Dr Gavin Ashendon and I talk about the blundering insensitivity of the police officer who marched into the sanctuary of Christ the King Church during the veneration of the Cross without apparently understanding anything of what the ceremony signified. https://twitter.com/themetskipper/status/1378273403623325701?

Is Dr Jordan Peterson about to convert to Christianity? If so, it’s a big deal. The earnest but sardonic Canadian psychologist is already the most effective advocate for the moral precepts of Christianity in the English-speaking media. But, until now, his penetrating exposition of the Bible has been inspired more by Jungian symbolism than by actual religious belief. That may be about to change, albeit not in the happiest of circumstances. In recent months Peterson has suffered from a combination of medical conditions that have left him in wretched pain, both physical and psychological. This has left him wondering whether it’s time to submit to the dogmatic assertions of orthodox Christianity.

The English parish has been a source of spiritual consolation, and a certain amount of social comedy, for more than 1,000 years. So it's very old – and, it turns out, frighteningly vulnerable to the coronavirus. Countless parish churches, both Anglican and Catholic, will quietly shut their doors forever over the next few months. Bishops will blame Covid-19, but they bear a heavy responsibility for the fragile state of parish life before it was hit by the epidemic. In this episode of Holy Smoke, former Church of England vicar Dr Gavin Ashenden tells us what it was like running a parish, and reveals his strategies for dealing with difficult personalities in the congregation, some of whom really did resemble the stereotypes of British sitcoms.

Boris Johnson's package of Covid restrictions announced this week included a rule that weddings will be limited to 15 people and funerals to 30 – numbers plucked out of thin air that will have questionable effect on the transmission of the virus. You might think that a ruling that affects only weddings and funerals isn't such a big deal for the churches, but that is to underestimate the fanatical zeal of their leaders for implementing, and expanding, restrictions on their own worship. The control-freak Archbishop of Canterbury, predictably, seemed quite thrilled by the government's intervention.

The Church of England has a new Archbishop of York and a problem on its hands. Or to be more accurate, the problem it already had – senior bishops who speak entirely in progressive jargon – has just got infinitely worse. Archbishop Stephen Cottrell made the headlines even before he was enthroned last week, when he ‘revealed’ that Jesus was black. This came as news to everyone except the far left, race-baiting fanatics of Black Lives Matter, who enjoy dabbling in bizarre ‘Afrocentric’ history. Perhaps Cottrell picked up the idea from them: he seems completely obsessed with racism, especially of the imaginary variety that supposedly poisons the Church of England.

Last week I was sent a copy of a devastating 7,000-word letter accusing the Catholic bishops of England and Wales of grossly mishandling the coronavirus crisis by lobbying the government for a complete shutdown of their own churches, even for private prayer. The author called herself (or, more than likely, himself) ‘Fiona McDonald’ – and used a heavily encrypted email service in order to avoid being tracked down.  McDonald claimed that the bureaucrats of the Bishops’ Conference were sending out misleading and even untruthful messages about the church lockdown, claiming that it was forced on them by the government. It quoted a letter from Richard Moth, the Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, which contradicted this.

Do you sense that something is missing in the churches' response to the coronavirus? No one can fault them for ignoring the dangers of spreading the virus: bishop after bishop has taken the difficult decision to suspend public worship, and offered sensible advice about precautionary measures their flocks can take. And, in many cases, that's about it. Indeed, many church leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, sound more like health and safety officers than the successors to the apostles.