Christianity
Can Pope Leo end the liturgy wars?
Last weekend, under windswept banners depicting the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, nearly 20,000 young pilgrims marched…
Vampires, werewolves and Sami sorcerers
Animism, divination and shape-shifting witchcraft continued to be powerful forces in the Baltic long after the conversion of Europe to Christianity
Church teaching on homosexuality can be revised
Lamorna Ash devotes much space to interviewing gay Christians seared by homophobia, but neglects scripture’s underlying message about the link between sex and loving commitment
Why shamanism shouldn’t be dismissed as superstitious savagery
Our need for belief in the supernatural gave rise to a demand for ‘mystical intermediaries’, or shamans, forging man’s earliest religion from which all others developed, argues Manvir Singh
The extraordinary scale of the crisis facing the next pope
At 9.47 a.m. on Easter Monday we heard the words ‘con profondo dolore’ from a cardinal standing in the chapel…
Pope Francis had his priorities right
After he emerged from the Gemelli hospital in Rome last month, Pope Francis put out a reflection on ‘hospital’. Some…
How I found Christianity
I wasn’t brought up in the faith. My maternal grandfather was a Methodist lay-preacher, but when my mother left County…
Why is the British Museum hiding its great Orthodox icons?
The long neglected art of Byzantium and early Christianity is returning to the world’s museums. Last November, the Louvre confirmed…
Letters: The case for ‘raves in the nave’
Reality check Sir: While I share Mr Gove’s diagnosis of lodestar-less Starmerism (‘Cruel Labour’, 5 April), I cannot share the…
The C of E’s tragic misuse of its sacred spaces
I am a priest in the high church tradition of the Church of England. The technical term is Anglo-Catholicism, but…
Save Syria’s Christians
David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, and Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, had rather tellingly different responses to the latest…
The true birthplace of the Renaissance
The baby reaches out to touch his mother’s scarf: he studies her face intently, and she focuses entirely on him.…
A trap for the right
On Thursday 16 August 1739, the young John Wesley met and for an hour argued with the middle-aged Bishop of…
Are you Ramadan-ready?
‘Are you Ramadan-ready?’ That was the poster in Sainsbury’s advertising its delicious range of fast-breaking foods (rice was one). And…
Why is there no campaign to free novelist Boualem Sansal?
Paris What possible crime has the award-winning novelist Boualem Sansal committed that merits being locked away for three months now…
For all its fame, the Great Siege of Malta made no difference to the course of history
The victorious Hospitallers soon subsided into genteel irrelevance, while the Ottomans remained a formidable Mediterranean power for centuries to come
This other Eden: Adam and Eve in Paradise, by Eça de Queirós, reviewed
Published in 1897, Queiros’s novella revisits Christianity’s first man and woman, departing from the Creation story in ways both playful and profound
We are all people of faith, whether we realise it or not
Reason, narrowly framed, will never reveal the world to us. A better path involves reason harnessed to our ethical and aesthetic impulses, argues Alister McGrath
The Christian case for hunting
When I was a teenager, my closest friend, Henry, would vanish into the Shropshire Hills over the hunting season’s weekends.…
‘I’m a new kind of Christian’: Jordan Peterson on faith, family and the future of the right
Professor Jordan Peterson is a Canadian psychologist, author and commentator whose latest book, We Who Wrestle with God, is about…
Letters: Where to find the best negroni
Free thinking Sir: Your leading article (‘Article of faith’, 14 December) appears to have forgotten the connection between rationalism and…
In defence of faith
For what should we give thanks this Christmas? The faith that sustains millions through life’s challenges and inspires countless acts…
What The Spectator taught Benjamin Franklin
Christmas came early this year. No, I’m not moaning about the carols that my local café started piping at the…
The end of Christendom is nigh
If you are of a traditional turn of mind, you might well go to church this Christmas, sing the carols…
A Christian revival is under way
This is my second Christmas as a Christian. As an atheist, I had dismissed the bright lights and customs of…
