John Harris on Maybe I'm Amazed: A story of love and connection in ten songs
John Harris, the Guardian columnist and host of its Politics Weekly UK podcast, is best known for his political and music journalism. His new book, Maybe I’m Amazed: A story of love and connection in ten songs, is a personal story about life with his autistic son James and the life-changing effect of his son’s intense connection with popular music.
On the podcast this week, he talks to Sarah Meyrick, editor of the Church Times, about the book. Harris, who calls himself a “devout agnostic”, also speaks about his son’s love of playing organs when they visit churches during country walks.
Maybe I’m Amazed is published by John Murray at £16.99 (Church Times Bookshop £15.29). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781399814034/maybe-im-amazed?vc=CT530
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30:13
Francis Spufford on Cahokia Jazz
On the podcast this week, Francis Spufford discusses his latest novel, Cahokia Jazz, with the Dean of Southwark, the Very Revd Dr Mark Oakley. The conversation was recorded at the Church Times Festival of Faith and Literature, which was held in Winchester in March (Features, 7 March).
Set in an alternative America in the 1920s, Cahokia Jazz is “a detective novel with noir tendencies” which is “as inventive and unpredictable in its setting as it is in its thrilling plot”, Dr Oakley wrote in a review in the Church Times.
Cahokia Jazz is available in paperback from the Church House Bookshop. https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780571336883/cahokia-jazz
Francis Spufford’s first novel, Golden Hill, won the Costa First Novel Award 2016; his second novel, Light Perpetual was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize. He has also written five highly praised works of non-fiction, including Unapologetic: Why, despite everything Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense, which was shortlisted for the 2016 Michael Ramsey Prize.
Picture credit: Harvey Mills
Find out about forthcoming Church Times events at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/events
Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader
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45:07
Who will choose the next Archbishop of Canterbury?
The names of most of those who will help to decide the next Archbishop of Canterbury were announced this week: five representatives of the global Anglican Communion, along with those selected from among the central members elected by the General Synod for a five-year term.
Previously, the Canterbury Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) has had only one representative of the Anglican Communion, but this was increased to five after a Synod vote in 2022.
On the podcast this week, the editor, Sarah Meyrick, and staff writer, Francis Martin, talk about the composition of the Canterbury CNC: who the members are and how their views might influence the kind of person who is appointed. Will church tradition be a consideration? How likely is it that CNC members will vote for a woman to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury? And how does this protracted process compare to the election of a new pope?
Photo credit: Neil Turner/Lambeth Palace
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23:11
Paul Vallely reflects on the life of Pope Francis
On this episode, Paul Vallely, a columnist for the Church Times, talks about the papacy of Pope Francis and what his legacy might be.
Pope Francis adopted “a pastoral approach”, he says, “not a dogmatic approach.
“He thought that people, were the centre of the gospel, and he thought that mercy was more important than dogma. He didn’t really change a lot of Catholic teaching, in the sense that he saw dogma as the kind of ideal to which we all aspire. He knew we weren’t perfect or ideal: we were all on a journey and starting very often in a difficult place. He wanted to be there at the start of the journey to accompany people. He wasn’t a liberal: he was a pastor.”
Paul Vallely has also written in the Church Times this week about Pope Francis, after news of his death on Easter Monday, aged 88. Read the article here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/25-april/comment/columnists/paul-vallely-pope-francis-was-pastor-to-the-world
Paul Vallely’s book, Untying the Knots: The struggle for the soul of Catholicism, is published by Bloomsbury.
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22:09
Sam Wells on Dietrich Bonehoeffer's Ethics
Eighty years ago, on 9 April 1945, the Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed in Flossenburg. Ethics was the final book that he wrote before his arrest by the Nazis. Pages of it were on his desk the day he was taken away and it remained unfinished. Based on careful reconstruction of the manuscripts, freshly and expertly translated and annotated, this crown jewel of Bonhoeffer’s body of work is the culmination of his theological and personal odyssey.
A repackaged edition of Ethics, published by SCM Press, includes a foreword by the Revd Dr Sam Wells. On the podcast this week, to mark the anniversary, Dr Wells reads the foreword.
"Perhaps the greatest fascination of the book lies in the insight it gives to the soul of the author in the midst of the German crisis and the war”, he says.
Dr Wells is the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, in London.
https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334065876/ethics-repackaged-edition
Try 10 issues of the Church Times for £10 or get two months access to our website and apps, also for £10. Go to www.churchtimes.co.uk/new-reader
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