Theo Hobson is the author of seven books, including God Created Humanism: the Christian Basis of Secular Values
‘It’s like being in church’, said my teenage son. It was a bit — two bursts of prayer, a religious song, a long sermon, and a general air of community-reverence, inclusive piety. We were watching Biden’s inauguration last week, grateful for a mid-afternoon break from other screens. These are quasi-religious events — I knew that.
So Sex and The City is returning under a new name, and there is a new Russell Davies drama about gay experience. When will television dare to address the experience of heterosexual men with even an ounce of sensitivity? My thoughts were prompted by the American drama A Teacher (currently on BBC iplayer), about
Happy Epiphany! The coming of the wise men means that this strange Christmas is finally over. It used to be a twelve day holiday, but nowadays there’s at least a month of build-up. For a century or two, royal and imperial pageantry was a sort of replacement for public religion I have nothing against Christmas
An editorial in the Guardian on Friday suggests that this year may be a good one for liberal Christians, and gives them a little pat on the back. Liberalism thinks itself the wiser, cooler sibling of religion The suggestion is based on four things: the churches have shown their social relevance during the pandemic; the incoming American
A few years ago, around this time of year, I overheard a nice exchange in a charity shop (I was doing my Christmas shopping, I suppose) outside of London, in a middle-England market town. A woman came in, a bit flustered, had a quick rummage through some hangers, and then asked the lady at the
Imagine being in love with someone who ignores you eleven months of the year, then suddenly seems really into you. Instead of elation you feel a weird form of pain as your beloved finally smiles on you, and finds you interesting, for you know that it is just a seasonal thing, and that frosty indifference
Greg Clarke, the chairman of the Football Association, stood down this week after saying some politically incorrect things. Chief among his offences, it seems, was his use of the word ‘coloured’, when referring to black players. On the Today programme, an interviewee explained that this term was deeply offensive to ‘people of colour’, as it reminded
In this week’s TLS Rory Stewart reviews Tom Bower’s biography of Boris Johnson. He doesn’t say much about the actual book, but it’s one of the most important articles on the prime minister I’ve read for a long time. Just now, in place of ‘the prime minister’ I wrote ‘Boris’, deleted it, then wrote ‘Johnson’
To say that Martin Amis exemplifies the elevation of style over substance is like saying that Donald Trump is a bit vulgar. An author who makes his name by elevating style over substance so dramatically, I suggest, cannot come back from it. It is a one-way act, like losing your virginity. In recent years, Amis
Public atheism has a new face. Your uncle Richard has been replaced by your cool cousin Alice. She’s bursting with fun facts about nature and history, but is also a well-rounded human, happy meeting other humans and smiling a lot. (Uncle Richard sometimes smiles, but it’s usually a by-product of sneering at the flawed footnote
The current resurgence of debate about racism shows that we still need the concept of sin. Seriously, sin? Yes. Without this concept, we can’t really understand the BLM movement. In the past, moral campaigns were tied to concrete demands for changes in legislation, or government policy. Ban the bomb, legalise homosexuality, overthrow capitalism, and so
If only God had clearly decreed exactly what sort of music he wanted us to make in church. For uncertainty on this matter is highly problematic. If only he had said, for example, unaccompanied female voices on weekdays and an all-male choir on Sundays, with nothing composed before 1800 and no stringed instruments, except at
I share the average liberal’s unease at woke-ism, or ‘hyper-liberalism’ – let’s call it Woke Zeal. But I disagree with those pundits who see it as a new thing, at odds with the vague liberal consensus of the past. Because it is willing to curtail freedom of speech in the pursuit of its aims, they
The grumbling of high church clergy should now lessen a bit. They were complaining, in some cases furiously, about the Chuch of England’s decision to go further than the law required when it came to the lockdown, telling clergy not to open their churches at all, and not to broadcast services from them. Some were threatening
The visible face of this virus, for most of us, is the ambulances. All else that we see – empty streets, spaced out queues, face masks, rainbows in windows – is secondary. Only the ambulances tell of the disease itself. They are the eerily siren-less blue flashing tips of the iceberg. So I am surprised
The closing of the churches over Easter is an opportunity to think about what church is, and what role it plays in our lives, if any. Plenty of Christians have already written in praise of their worshipping communities, saying how they miss the normal togetherness. My approach is more nuanced. Yes, I too miss going
George Eliot deserves some praise 200 years after her birth. But the sort of praise she is getting is predictably blinkered by the literary assumptions of our day. She is celebrated as the great fore-runner of the secular feminist literary culture of today, as if she was Margaret Atwood in lace, or Zadie Smith in
While launching her campaign to be returned as MP for North West Durham, Laura Pidcock revealed the barmy self-righteousness that has taken over the Labour party. This is how she wrapped up her speech: ‘I know it has been a long time coming, but we are on the path to justice. And because people know
So there is more than one Old Etonian hoping to ride to the nation’s rescue. My first reaction to the news that Justin Welby is involved in plans for a citizens’ assembly to find an alternative to a no-deal Brexit was sceptical. Too late for such an initiative. Give Boris a chance to get on with
I don’t pretend to have had extensive discussions about religion with our new Prime Minister, but I did have a couple of brief ones when he edited my first Spectator articles. We once discussed Christian and Muslim ideas of martyrdom, and he was suddenly reminded of a hymn he liked at Eton which he proceeded
