Theo Hobson is the author of seven books, including God Created Humanism: the Christian Basis of Secular Values
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_16_April_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Douglas Murray and Freddy Gray discuss the return of God” startat=37] Listen [/audioplayer]Like any movement or religion, atheism has ambitions. Over the years it has grown and developed until it has become about far more than just not believing in God: today atheism aspires to a moral system too. It comes with an
I’m generally a fan of the Guardian’s website, and sometimes write for it, but I’m sick of how much space it gives to ladettes banging on about sex. It’s a firm rule that, to write on matters sexual, you have to be a young female with a jaunty prose style and a strong belief that
The Church of England has had some surprisingly good press recently. Who knows how these things happen, but the media seems to have decided to stop attacking its homophobia, and to start praising its social vision. The change at Lambeth Palace seems to have prompted this shift, which is a bit ironic, as Justin Welby
It is a wearyingly obvious observation, but the Church of England remains crippled by the gay crisis. It is locked in disastrous self-opposition, alienated from its largely liberal nature. Maybe the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has a secret plan that will break the deadlock: there is no sign of it yet. The advent
The atheist spring that began just over a decade ago is over, thank God. Richard Dawkins is now seen by many, even many non-believers, as a joke figure, shaking his fist at sky fairies. He’s the Mary Whitehouse of our day. So what was all that about, then? We can see it a bit more
It is widely agreed that 9/11 had a silver lining: that frightening day prodded us into thinking about religion, into taking it seriously. It nudged us away from our embarrassed evasion and forced us to admit that religion is a huge cultural and political force, even in Britain. It helped to bury the myth that
It is widely agreed that 9/11 had a silver lining: that frightening day prodded us into thinking about religion, into taking it seriously. It nudged us away from our embarrassed evasion and forced us to admit that religion is a huge cultural and political force, even in Britain. It helped to bury the myth that
Blimey, who’s going to resign next? Chartres? Williams? The Queen? God maybe? What’s going on here? A high-profile branch of the C of E has been put in the media spotlight in a way that it cannot cope with. It is being cast as stooge of the System, bankers’ poodle. It wants desperately to communicate
It is one of the most important religion stories for a decade or so. The Church of England seems to have changed its mind on church schools. A few days ago, the Bishop of Oxford, the Right Reverend John Pritchard, who is also chairman of the Church’s board of education, said he wanted just 10
Why does the American religious right get all the attention: is there not also a religious left? Why is it always on the back foot? Why, though such a basic part of the nation’s history, does it seem un-American? It suffers from the same problem as its political cousin: most Americans think of the left
It’s very telling that, in a debate earlier this week, Christine O’Donnell seemed not to know that the separation of church was in the Constitution. The wider point is that the religious right, which underlies the Tea Party movement (as a recent study shows), is built on a skewed version of American history. It depends
Most of the media responses to Griffin have been a bit complacent. He was exposed as a dodgy idiot, the vast majority say. I thought he came across pretty well, considering the wrongness of his views. I was uncomfortably reminded that the message of an extreme reactionary is always surprisingly seductive, tempting. The essential appeal
Theo Hobson is depressed by the media’s rapturous welcome for Grindr, a new software device that helps gay men locate each other for impromptu sex I am not a homophobe. But I suppose I might be a pinkophobe. I do not think that homosexuality is wrong, bad, inferior, hateful in the eyes of God. And
Theo Hobson attends Grace, an alternative Christian service in west London, and finds it arty, irreverent, postmodern — and full of people seeking a new way to worship I went to church last weekend. Sort of. It was a Saturday evening service run by a group of laypeople in an Anglican church in Ealing. It’s
Is David Cameron religious? In the course of his interview with the Evening Standard he provides a clear glimpse of his attitude to religion. He sees it as something that should be advocated with the utmost care, if votes are not to be squandered. He is asked if faith in God is important to him.
Northern Ireland is trying to decommission its grammar schools. The case against selection is being made with the familiar vehemence: a system that allows an 11-year-old child to fail a test and be branded second-rate is retrograde. This seems to be the official line of all the main political parties in mainland Britain. But none
The Quilliam foundation has found that 97% of imams working in Britain are foreign-born, and that nearly half of mosques do not make provisions for women. A huge proportion of mosques are led by rabble-rousers, obsessed by Middle Eastern politics rather than the actual day-to-day needs of their community. In short, Muslim religious culture is
Andrew Motion has confirmed his image as the ultimate middlebrow, wet liberal. He is passionately keen that students should read the Bible, so that they can progress on to the true faith of Eng-Lit. ‘I am not for a moment suggesting that everybody be made to go to church during their childhood’ he told the
The main thing that struck me, as I read Rupert Shortt’s biography of Rowan Williams, was how amazingly sheltered the Archbishop of Canterbury’s life has been. I don’t mean economically privileged (most of us are pretty much on a level in this respect), or emotionally easy (whose is?) – I mean ideologically and institutionally fixed.
You’d think Darwin created the world all by himself with a few test-tubes, the amount of attention he’s getting. I’m not denying he’s a brill biologist, but there’s more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his theory. And the discussion about science and religion that surrounds him is just bo-oring. No
