Society

Sunday

Rupert Shortt

Why we should believe that Jesus rose from the dead

Christian interpretations of Easter can sound notoriously subjective to sceptics. Consider the following claims made by a distinguished preacher I heard recently. ‘To encounter Jesus is to encounter the source of all life and love – namely God himself.’ ‘In the Incarnation, [Christ] becomes one of us in order to restore life to a dead world.’ And ‘Jesus entered into mortal danger to save us from endless death, to impart for us his eternal, divine life at the cost of his human life.’ Similar sentiments are, of course, very familiar to churchgoers. But what inspires the faithful often leaves others cold. How did the crucifixion and what followed it change

Bijan Omrani

In defence of cultural Christianity

Christian culture is under fresh attack. Those striving to preserve old Christian institutions, to maintain the Bible and Church traditions as a common cultural reference point, or to use scriptural ideas to influence society’s laws and ethics, regardless of whether society still possesses an underlying faith, are facing censure. This new assault has not come from the usual suspects: Islamists, secularists, decolonisers or the woke left. Instead, the latest cries against Christian culture are coming from Christians themselves. The faith of Christ’s apostles was active. Its ethic was constructive The charge has been led by Paul Kingsnorth, the writer, environmentalist and former journalist, who was baptised into the Romanian Orthodox

Geoff Hill

Easter means hope in South Africa

For urban South Africans – now 70 per cent of the country’s population – there’s much to celebrate this Easter because, in addition to the four-day weekend, there are two more breaks within a fortnight. On Monday 28 April, we remember the first democratic election in 1994, and in the same week is International Labour Day on 1 May, marking the strike of 1886 that shut America in a quest for better pay and conditions. How does it make Easter special? Because in South Africa, urban growth is recent, and the bonds to rural family are strong. In black culture, the children of anyone with blood-links to your parents’ generation are thought of as siblings.

Saturday

Gus Carter Gus Carter

Yes, men need saving

A few weeks ago, when Adolescence first came out, I found myself reading some of the academic literature on incels. It turns out they are a risk – but only really to themselves. When interviewed, over half of incels said they had considered killing themselves in the previous two weeks, compared to 5 per cent of the population who had thought about it in the past year. There isn’t much research directly linking suicide to incel culture, but we do know that the rate at which teenage boys are killing themselves is at its highest level for 30 years. Incels that kill tend only to kill themselves. But hang on,

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

The march of the trans mob is over

I wake up in a good humour most mornings, but today I started the day feeling that this country – which seems, in so many ways, to have been sleepwalking in a hall of distorting mirrors for so long – had taken a definitive step towards the overthrow of the crazed, tyrannical cult which has inexplicably gained power all around the world. In the process of dignifying a male sexual fetish – autogynephilia – into the latest human rights crusade, careers have been ruined and reputations wrecked by trans activists and their creepy ‘allies’: all in the name of the ultimate patriarchal plan; to colonise everything won by women, from

Patrick Kidd

The project to revive the oldest hymn in the world

Passiontide is a good time for church music. From the triumphal Palm Sunday processionals of ‘All Glory, Laud and Honour’ and ‘Ride On! Ride On in Majesty!’ to the mournful but grateful reflections of ‘My Song is Love Unknown’. From the desperate sadness of ‘O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded’, the tune coming from Bach’s ‘St Matthew Passion’, to the Handel-set pomp of ‘Thine Be The Glory’ on Easter Day. This Holy Week a new song of praise has arrived. Or rather an ancient one has been revived. In 1918, archaeologists digging on a rubbish dump at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt discovered a tattered piece of papyrus on which was written the

Adam James Pollock

Gout is no longer the disease of kings

Towards the end of his life, suffering from culminating decades of decadence and subsequent ill health, Benjamin Franklin penned a humorous dialogue between himself and a personified interpretation of the source of all his ills: gout. Gout, taking the personality of a scolding schoolmarm, chastises Franklin for his indulgence and sedentary lifestyle, pointing out that he ‘ate and drank too freely, and too much indulged those legs of yours in their indolence’. Britain’s welfare state today supports more weight than George IV’s trouser braces Gout had a reputation for being the disease of kings, a form of arthritis largely caused by a diet only achievable in past eras by the

Chas Newkey-Burden

When did greeting cards become so rubbish?

When I heard that WH Smith was going to disappear from our high streets, I became a nostalgic mess. I was transported back to childhood trips to buy pencil cases before each school year began, weekend visits to browse football magazines, some of which I even bought, and those late December expeditions, feeling loaded as I arrived clutching the WH Smith tokens I’d been given for Christmas. God bless those generous, if not always imaginative, relatives! There’s still time to nip in and buy an Easter card before they shut their doors, but frankly, given how dreadful most greeting cards have become, why bother? What we put on our mantelpieces

Friday

Patrick West

Trans activists won’t be silenced by the Supreme Court ruling

Many people have been celebrating after the Supreme Court’s declaration that the definition of a woman will indeed be based on biological sex. Some have heralded it as signifying the end of radical trans ideology, or even the end of woke politics altogether. All this remains to be seen. What we certainly won’t see, however, is the language of emotion in politics finally being put to bed, as reason and common sense make a welcome return to our lives. In fact, the tyranny of feelings is likely to get much worse. Before Wednesday’s landmark ruling, radical trans activists had invariably deployed feelings and emotive words to advance their cause. They

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Easter special: in praise of faithful dissent, a conversation with Nigel Biggar and Mary Wakefield

24 min listen

The Easter issue of the Spectator includes two provocative articles exploring aspects of Christianity.  Nigel Biggar, Regius professor emeritus of moral theology at Oxford University, now a Conservative peer, celebrates the heroic ‘faithful dissent’ of Christian heroes such as Thomas More and Helmuth von Moltke, who lost their lives rather than defend injustice.  Meanwhile Spectator columnist Mary Wakefield interviews Roman Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury. She’s inspired by his holiness but depressed by his use of ‘C of E bureaucratese’ to uphold liberal orthodoxy on subjects such as gender ideology. But, she says they can share an uncomfortable space together within faith. In this episode of Holy Smoke, Nigel and Mary join Damian Thompson, who

Bijan Omrani

What English Heritage gets wrong about the origins of Easter

Easter is, of course, the time of year when Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but don’t expect to learn that on the English Heritage children’s Easter trail. ‘Did you know Easter started as a celebration of spring?,’ children who take part in the trail are told. Any mention of Christ or Christianity is omitted from that sign, which has been planted at English Heritage sites across the country. However, one god does get a look in. This first panel, decorated with children collecting flowers, painted eggs and a cheery Easter bunny, gave the following account of the origin of Easter: ‘Long ago, people welcomed warmer days

Alexander Larman

Toby Carvery has disgraced itself, but not for the first time

The admission by Toby Carvery that it chopped down an ancient oak tree overlooking one of its pubs has outraged anyone who cares about arboreal preservation, British heritage and decent food and drink – not necessarily in that order. The Mitchells and Butlers group, which owns Toby Carvery, issued a statement saying that the tree in Whitewebbs Park in Enfield, north London, was felled because they ‘were advised by our specialist arboriculture contractors that it caused a potential health and safety risk’. ‘This was an important action to protect our employees and guests as well as the wider general public, to whom we have a duty of care,’ a spokesman

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

The plight of Nigeria’s Christians

The persecution of Nigeria’s Christians is medieval in its horror. Villages are surrounded in the dead of night by bandits who rape and kill the inhabitants. No one is spared: women and children are among those butchered. The Makurdi Diocese, in Nigeria’s Middle Belt Benue state, has been hit badly by this savage violence. In 2024, 549 locals in this diocese alone were murdered and dozens more kidnapped. Over 3,700 people in Makurdi have been killed since 2015. Villages have been effectively wiped off the map. Over a million Nigerians, terrified of what might await them, have chosen instead to live in Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps. Wilfred Anagbe, the

Zoe Strimpel

The trouble with Harvard

Harvard is in trouble, but I’m finding it hard to have any sympathy. In the aftermath of October 7th, Jewish students at what is supposedly the United States’s most prestigious university were intimidated, vilified and silenced. It was an intolerable double punch after the trauma of Hamas’s brutal massacre in Israel. The ugly scenes at Harvard became a blueprint for campus protests throughout the US, especially at Columbia, UCLA and the University of Michigan. These all-campus jamborees of Israel-loathing were looked on benignly, and sometimes even joined, by faculty that are otherwise easily angered by crimes such as using the wrong gender pronoun. Now, as threatened, Donald Trump is taking

Thomas Munson

The Good Friday Agreement has failed to heal Northern Ireland

‘As if we didn’t have enough to argue about!’ exclaimed the gentleman in front. We were standing just off a busy road adjacent to a looming wall. The road wasn’t any road, and the wall wasn’t any wall. It was Shankill Road, and this was one of Belfast’s infamous peace walls. The man wasn’t picking a fight. He was referring to West Belfast’s increasingly prevalent references to the war in Gaza. Peace walls have adorned murals of Northern Irish paramilitaries for decades. Now, there are a growing number of references to fighting in the Middle East, with Belfast’s Protestant and Catholic communities divided on the issue with sad predictability. Falls

Thursday

Richard Dawkins

Will the Supreme Court gender case victors get the apologies they deserve?

Those who have won a great victory after years of struggle are entitled to enjoy a modest triumph, a single victory lap. But to crow too loudly is unseemly, and it is the mark of a small victor to pursue former opponents vindictively, taking vengeful advantage of new-found power to do so. An ugly object lesson is the small-minded man gleefully dominating American headlines today: a walking, talking, strutting, preening definition of how not to behave in victory. If there’s one thing you can count on a woman to quite clearly not have, it is a penis On 16 April, in London, the Supreme Court handed a stunning victory to

Dan Hitchens

Easter special: assisted dying, ‘bunny ebola’ & how do you eat your creme egg?

34 min listen

This week: should the assisted dying bill be killed off? Six months after Kim Leadbeater MP launched the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a group of Labour MPs have pronounced it ‘irredeemably flawed and not fit to become law’. They say the most basic aspects of the bill – having gone through its committee stage – do not hold up to scrutiny. Dan Hitchens agrees, writing in the magazine this week that ‘it’s hard to summarise the committee’s proceedings except with a kind of Homeric catalogue of rejected amendments’ accompanied by a ‘series of disconcerting public statements’.  With a third reading vote approaching, what could it tell us

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

‘Jordan Peterson is a sad and angry man’: an interview with Rowan Williams

Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, has a new book out, a slim, thoughtful introduction to Christianity. But that’s not quite why I went to Cardiff to visit him. I went because, although I admire the superstar culture warriors of the right, there’s something Williams is witness to which they lack. Like many readers, I think Rowan Williams pretty loopy on most subjects – Brexit, Islam, immigration, the dreaded trans debate – but Rod Liddle always says that Rowan is a holy man, and Rod is right. We sit opposite each other drinking tea in his book-lined living room. The 104th Archbishop of Canterbury is looking amiable but confused. ‘The Spectator

Nigel Biggar

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 Durham for marriage in south-west Scotland, she left the religion of her childhood behind. My Scottish father’s experience of church gave him an odd penchant for the electric organ, but that was about it. So when, at the age of 12, I screwed up my courage and came out as a Christian, Dad put his hand on my shoulder – for the only time – and said: ‘It’s OK, son; it’s just a phase.’ Now, as my Christian phase approaches its seventh decade, I find myself looking back and wondering

John Rutter

The world reveres British music

I have just returned from the lovely Italian city of Rimini, where 300 local singers had gathered for a weekend of choral music under my direction, culminating in a concert in the grand Teatro. As they sang amid the chandeliers, gilded cherubs and plush velvet, I reflected that in all the recent discussion about tariffs, no one has yet highlighted the importance of music as a British export. As a representative of our choral tradition, I was treated with something like the reverence that would be accorded to a Brazilian footballer or a Russian chess player. My host, the regional choral supremo, knew all about our British choirs. His CD