Christianity
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…
The strange, beautiful Christmas I spent alone
My parents gave up on Christmas altogether once I left home for university. They had never been people for celebrations…
Carols are much weirder than we think
Why, my sharp-minded colleague Tom Utley once asked after a Telegraph Christmas Carol service, should anyone think God would abhor…
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre contains terrible art – but is filled with magic
For a press tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – the Church of the Resurrection, the…
We need to learn to pray again
God is real, Rod Dreher insists, and we’re born to be in communion with him. But the focus and mental commitment that prayer requires are impossible if we’re forever doom-scrolling
Is it time for Jordan Peterson to declare his spiritual allegiance?
In an outstanding study of the Old Testament, Peterson teases out the inner meaning of one story after another. But though in effect signed up to Christian metaphysics, his beliefs are a mystery
After Welby: what’s next for the Church of England?
It’s taken him more than a decade, but Justin Welby has finally united the Church of England. The petition calling…
We’ll never know what treasures the Tudor Reformation robbed us of
Amy Jeffs likens the shattered world of medieval Christianity to the dispersed relics of the many saints whose memory Henry VIII hoped to obliterate
Does Keir Starmer’s atheism matter?
Good Friday, 2021, at Jesus House For All Nations church in Brent, north-west London. Face masked, head bowed, hands clasped,…
The roots of anti-Semitism in Europe
The original blood libel, which materialised after the First Crusade in the 11th century, proved a turning point for Jews, as a wave of religious frenzy swept communities away
