Christianity
Feasts and fabrications
Japan’s ramen ‘tradition’ was created in 1958 to use up surplus imported flour, while Pizza Margherita’s specious royal connection helped boost Naples’s tourist trade
Centuries of martyrs
There is no redemption in this account of the birth of Latin Christendom, with ‘heretics’ suffering cruelly for the beliefs, just as Christian martyrs had under the Romans
Art attack
Has the Vatican abandoned beauty?
Mysterious ways
The Chester Mystery Plays date back to the 13th century – but are more popular now than ever, finds Richard Bratby
Who you gonna call?
The Anglican priests charged with exorcising evil spirits
Fall from grace
Robert Gore-Langton explores the remarkable life of televangelist Tammy Faye, and its descent into chaos
The Spectator’s Notes
‘So it is come at last, the distinguished thing!’ exclaimed Henry James on his deathbed. Such a thought is reflected…
Defender of the faith
The Queen’s life was anchored by Christianity
The Archbishop of Canterbury has risen to the occasion
Archbishop Justin Welby has done a good job of relating the Queen’s virtues to her Christian faith. This is no…
Mystic multitudes
Matthew Arnold cannot have been much fun on holiday. Watching waves crash on the pebbles at Dover Beach, he heard…
Why the Bible still matters
If you look to our schools and universities, you will not see a serious engagement with the Bible as part…
Letters
In check Sir: Jade McGlynn (‘Conflict of opinion’, 23 April) has a point that there are many reasons for popular…
Diary
This week has been Passiontide, which means lots of wonderful plainsong in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral as my predecessors…
Who’s story is it?
‘Whenever you see a character in a novel, let alone a biography or history book, reduced and neatened into three…
Turbulent priest
The Patriarch in league with Putin
Enduring legends
Once upon a time there was a collection of stories that everybody loved. They involved brave heroes such as Perseus…
Dostovesky and Putin’s useful idiots
When I was 17 I heard the name Dostovesky, and was enthralled. Just the name felt so glamorously intellectual, so…
True devotion
The 20th century was an amazing time for Russian pianists, and the worse things got, politically and militarily, the more…
Grapes of wrath
Don’t deny me my communion wine
Letters
Beyond the party Sir: Rod Liddle is spot-on in arguing that the attitudes revealed by ‘partygate’ extend to senior civil…
High life
A few weeks after Friedrich Nietzsche bragged to an admirer that he had completed a ruthless attack on our Lord,…
Prophesying doom
Janine di Giovanni’s book begins in a Paris apartment during the first lockdown. She’s at a friend’s home, which she…
From nomads to emperors
This is the best of times to be writing history, since so much of what has been taken for granted,…
How’s your father?
I was turned on to Midnight Mass by Ricky Gervais who raved about it in one of his social media…
‘A change of mind and heart’
Michael Nazir-Ali on his decision to join the Catholic church
