Religion

Letters: the very belief that poorer pupils do less well is what limits them

7 April 2018 9:00 am

Self-limiting beliefs Sir: As someone who spent much of his working life teaching at Eton and Harrow, it was amusing…

A tale of two Sarahs: the cuddly bishop vs the terrifying cardinal

31 March 2018 9:00 am

If you’re looking for a snapshot of the state of global Christianity today, a good place to start would be…

Why does James Purnell think radio needs to be ‘reinvented’?

2 December 2017 9:00 am

Grade: A A dimbo pop reviewer for one of our national newspapers suggested that on this album, her ninth, Björk…

Christian Slater is mesmerising: Glengarry Glen Ross reviewed

18 November 2017 9:00 am

David Mamet’s plays are tough to pull off because his dialogue lacks the predictable shapeliness of traditional dramatic speech. He…

Rarely has the West End seen such a draining and nasty experience: The Exorcist reviewed

11 November 2017 9:00 am

The Exorcist opened in 1973 accompanied by much hoo-ha in the press. Scenes of panic, nausea and fainting were recorded…

The ties that bound us

28 October 2017 9:00 am

Only Neil MacGregor could do it — take us in a single thread from a blackened copper coin, about the…

More secrets and symbols

28 October 2017 9:00 am

Being reflexively snotty about Dan Brown’s writing is like slagging off Donald Trump’s spelling: it just entrenches everyone’s position. In…

‘The Incredulity of Thomas’, by Caravaggio. (c.1603). It is only in St John’s Gospel that Thomas is portrayed as unbelieving

A Muslim’s insights into Christianity

28 October 2017 9:00 am

I’m not a critic, I’m an enthusiast. And when you are an enthusiast you need to try your best to…

Keeping faith

9 September 2017 9:00 am

For Church of England vicars who worry less about what they will preach on Sunday than whether there will be…

Hope, the blue whale, replaces Dippy, the diplodocus, in the Natural History Museum’s Hintze Hall

Cathedral of creation

12 August 2017 9:00 am

Sometimes, it pays to rediscover what’s already under your nose. I’ve been umpteen times to the Natural History Museum but…

A clash of creeds

12 August 2017 9:00 am

This is a very modern novel. Terrorist atrocity sits side by side with the familiar and the mundane. Where better…

Scabrous and sarcastic: singer-songwriter Randy Newman

His dark materials

5 August 2017 9:00 am

Randy Newman is already struggling to keep up with himself. His dazzling new album, Dark Matter, was written before the…

Scabrous and sarcastic: singer-songwriter Randy Newman

His dark materials

3 August 2017 1:00 pm

Randy Newman is already struggling to keep up with himself. His dazzling new album, Dark Matter, was written before the…

Deus ex machina

22 July 2017 9:00 am

Mark Zuckerberg says that Facebook could be to its users what churches are to congregations: it could help them feel…

In praise of Advent

26 November 2016 9:00 am

The first Sunday of Advent is 27 November this year. For those of us who prefer Advent services to Christmas…

Britain really is ceasing to be a Christian country

28 May 2016 9:00 am

A landmark in national life has just been passed. For the first time in recorded history, those declaring themselves to…

The slow (and ignominious) death of the British funeral

14 May 2016 9:00 am

I mourn for the traditional ceremony

Let’s vote ‘in’ to renew the EU, says Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor

7 May 2016 9:00 am

There is more to the idea of Europe than narrow economic considerations. The Remain side needs to say so

The price of a cathedral – and how deans pay it

26 March 2016 9:00 am

Deans are facing tough decisions to keep their beautiful buildings in good order

Patriotic Traitor finds dramatic gold in France’s interwar history

12 March 2016 9:00 am

Jonathan Lynn, co-author of Yes Minister, has excavated the history of France during the two world wars and discovered dramatic…

What do all these evil maniacs have in common?

5 March 2016 9:00 am

More bad publicity for the Islamic State’s ‘Kafir Tiny Tots and Babycare Service’. A burka-clad madwoman wandering through the streets…

Act of faith: Sybil Thorndike as Saint Joan, c.1924, in George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Saint Joan’

Why does drama always end up sneering at religion?

5 March 2016 9:00 am

 Theo Hobson explores the enduring appeal that religion has for dramatists

The sacrifice of Iphigenia: Agamemnon’s crime was ‘impious’, according to Lucretius

What did the ancient Greeks believe?

27 February 2016 9:00 am

It is a curious fact that the modern Hebrew for ‘atheist’, Tim Whitmarsh notes in passing, is apikoros. The word…

What conservative gay Christians want

20 February 2016 9:00 am

Conservative homosexual Christians want something more radical than marriage

Why is the organ such hard work?

13 February 2016 9:00 am

My old Oxford college, Mansfield, isn’t a famous establishment, though its current principal, ‘Baroness Helena Kennedy’, as she incorrectly styles…