Christianity
Losing our religion
Sir James MacMillan’s European Requiem, performed at the Proms on Sunday, isn’t about Brexit. The composer had to make this…
My fears about the new ‘extremism commission’
The Egyptian-born Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi was once invited to speak in this country — and the row which developed…
Mixed blessings
Japan is the only developed country where people openly espouse two distinct and incompatible religions at the same time —…
In praise of Advent
The first Sunday of Advent is 27 November this year. For those of us who prefer Advent services to Christmas…
Losing faith
A landmark in national life has just been passed. For the first time in recorded history, those declaring themselves to…
On Moses’s mountain
A medieval party of 800 Armenians at the top of Mount Sinai suddenly found themselves surrounded by fire. Their pilgrim…
The death of the funeral
I mourn for the traditional ceremony
Let’s renew the EU
There is more to the idea of Europe than narrow economic considerations. The Remain side needs to say so
The devil in footnote 351
What the Pope didn’t just say about divorce
Courting Sultana Isabel
The idea for a mechanical cock was never going to work. In 1595 the English ambassador to Constantinople, Edward Barton,…
The price of a cathedral
Deans are facing tough decisions to keep their beautiful buildings in good order
Following the followers
In his new book Apostle Tom Bissell has an advantage over writers who go looking for Jesus: he can start…
Hellzapoppin’
The 20th-century painter who called himself Balthus once proposed that a monograph about him should begin with the words ‘Balthus…
On the trail of Piero
Piero della Francesca is today acknowledged as one of the foundational artists of the Renaissance. Aldous Huxley thought his ‘Resurrection’…
Gays for God
Conservative homosexual Christians want something more radical than marriage
Rewriting the merchant’s tale
Howard Jacobson’s novelistic riff on The Merchant of Venice for the Hogarth Shakespeare project turns, unsurprisingly, on what makes some…
Long life
The Egyptian driver of a London minicab said almost nothing during our journey but dropped me off at my destination…
We need Christianity more than ever in this Age of Atheists
Have we ever needed Christianity more than we do today? It’s a rhetorical question, for sure, because the loss of…
Why would a dissolute rebel like Paul Gauguin paint a nativity?
Martin Gayford investigates how this splendid Tahitian Madonna came about and why religion was ever-present in Gauguin's art
Faith is left, right. . . and central
An interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby
The Lord’s Prayer is no more offensive than Jeremy Clarkson or deodorant
There was a time not so very long ago when the most common complaint about Christmas was that it had…
The question Christianity fails to answer: ‘Who is my neighbour?’
‘Fine old Christmas,’ wrote George Eliot, ‘with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his duty that year in…
Am I a brave cult survivor, too?
When I was 21, I lived with a cult for a year. It was a commune really, a tight-knit group…
The Spectator’s Notes
Speaking on the Today programme on Monday, Sir David Attenborough, who wants a global agreement to control carbon emissions, pointed…
Is the Archbishop of Canterbury forsaking God?
The Archbishop of Canterbury, we heard during the BBC’s Songs of Praise broadcast last Sunday, ‘doubted God’ after the Paris…
