Theo Hobson is co-editor of Created for Love: Towards a New Teaching on Sex and Marriage.
Alain de Botton, to judge from his new novel The Course of Love, is trying to be the Freud for our day, the Facebookers’ Freud. For a book that presents itself as an affirmation of married love, it is rather bleak. And the bleakness echoes that of the Viennese know-it-all. Freud, remember, said that our sex
When there’s a story about Christianity in decline, or in crisis, you always get a few loudmouth lifestyle columnists gloating – sorry, imparting their secular wisdom. Barbara Ellen was not very surprised that a new report says that Christians (at 44 per cent) are now outnumbered by ‘Nones’ (at 48.5 per cent). After all, the
There’s an interesting article in the Guardian by Julian Baggini. Now that nearly half of Britons say that they have no religion, he observes, some believers are saying that atheism is also a sort of faith. Though an atheist, he is not of the Dick Dawkins school, and so does not respond with Dickish bluntness.
Churches are generally ideal venues for public debates. But there’s a slight chance that a speech about the perils of EU membership will be interrupted by a homeless person doing a pee in the corner. At a debate on Christian responses to the EU at St James the Less church in Pimlico last night, Giles
I recently got round to reading Francis Fukuyama’s famous book The End of History and the Last Man. As well as heralding the triumph of liberal democracy, he explains that a snake will always lurk in the garden, for human nature is not entirely won over by the gospel of equality. He introduces us to
Our political culture contains some tension between Jews and Muslims. And some secular anti-Semitism, particularly on the left, and some Islamophobia. But, at the risk of getting Pollyannaish, let us see the positive. This country’s main religious culture, Christianity, is not involved in any of this nastiness. It does not contain any substantial prejudice against Muslims or
In his new book God is No Thing: Coherent Christianity, Rupert Shortt notes that religion is in some ways taken more seriously now than a decade or two ago. But huge habits of ignorance and condescension remain: ‘When secular humanists attack Christianity, they often fail to realise that it is the gospels which provide unseen
Louis Theroux’s latest documentary on alcoholism confirms the fact that he has become an interesting broadcaster. He has grown up. This was already clear from his last couple of films from America, on a secure mental hospital, and on transgender children. This might sound excessive, but he has become capable of expressing a more nuanced
Helena Kennedy’s two-part radio programme on human rights was very predictable. She did a lot of hand-wringing. She spoke some passionate rhetoric about our common humanity. She quoted Hannah Arendt. She consulted a lot of non-Western thinkers, a lot of fellow human rights lawyers, and a token critic of the concept of human rights. The first
I suppose it’s inevitable that Brexiters will angrily reject Obama’s intervention, especially his line about Britain being left ‘at the back of the queue’ when it comes to trade. But if they let their annoyance spill over into a general criticism of the president, they will harm their own case. For most Brits still rate
Last night Channel 4 broadcast a programme by Trevor Phillips, in which he worried about the integration of British Muslims. He suggested that we should switch to a policy of ‘active integration’. The night before, at the same time of 10pm, Channel 4 broadcast a programme in which the merits of having sex with a complete
The message of Pope Francis, in his exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), seems to be this: there must be rules. Only tough rules can express the absoluteness of the gospel. Without these rules it will be diluted, its saving force depleted. But the Church must apply these rules with Christlike tenderness and mercy,
Some people seem to want to discuss their sex lives on television, as in the show Sex Box. Couples are interviewed before and after they have tried something new, right there in the studio (although hidden from view). This week, the couple were close friends, and were trying out being lovers for the first time. The interviews are
Terrorism is a distraction. It’s a distraction from the big question of our day, about Islam and violence. Only a tiny minority of Muslims affirm that sort of violence. A far larger proportion of Muslims condone another, vaguer sort of violence. It is this that we must confront. I mean the violence of theocracy. Theocracy
It’s Holy Week, so I wonder if our national Church is in the news at all? Let’s see…There’s a story this week about a long dead bishop called Bell, accused of child sex abuse, to the anger of some. Don’t confuse Bell with Ball, an undisputed episcopal abuser. And don’t confuse Bishop Peter Ball with Bishop Michael
A ‘damning’ report has been published into the Church of England’s handling of a particular abuse case. Except it’s not very damning. In 1976 a 16-year old was abused by a priest called Garth Moore – an attempted rape took place. He kept quiet about it for a couple of years, then told various priests
What’s different about Donald Trump? Forget about the hair for a while, if you can. What sets him apart is his defiant disregard for the ideological consensus that other American politicians sign up to. That consensus can be summed up as ‘hopeful humanism’. Of course ‘humanism’ doesn’t mean non-religion here: this hopeful humanism is always
Last Friday I took part in a debate entitled ‘Does Islam Need a Reformation?’ It was run by the Muslim group IREA. I was a bit wary. I’ve been to a couple of Muslim-run debates and round-table discussions in which the mainly Muslim participants veered off-topic and took turns to attack Western foreign policy and to
Religion remains a surprisingly popular subject for plays. It’s partly because there’s already a core of theatricality there, in the rituals, the dressing-up and the little shibboleths of piety. In one way or another, religion involves performing. And religion plays the role of Hogwarts in Harry Potter — an enclosed world, a game with rules.
Niall Ferguson got me thinking about this in his Sunday Times piece, in which he rejected the allure of Brexit and declared himself an ‘Anglosceptic’. He concluded: ‘In the days before empire, Henry VIII’s version of Brexit was to renounce Roman Catholicism and divorce Catherine of Aragon. A true sceptic in those days would have
