Theo Hobson is the author of seven books, including God Created Humanism: the Christian Basis of Secular Values
A bishop of the Church of England cannot really express his or her view on gay marriage. The secular media has little interest in asking about anything else. Result: bishops sound comically evasive, having to ignore repeated questions on the issue with Michael Howardish determination. This is what happened in the newly-appointed Bishop of London
Tim Farron is not the ideal person to explain Christianity’s relationship to liberalism. When he resigned as leader of his party, after a poor election result, he complained about the culture’s anti-Christian bias. It’s a complicated enough issue, without sour grapes being added to the brew. He now says that British liberalism has become empty
In an article yesterday, Niall Ferguson tried to take a nuanced position on our changing sexual mores. I think he was right to refer to James Bond – I’m surprised other pundits have not. We’re still in quite a muddle, he says, while we revere this fantasy of droit de seigneur. Indeed. Not long ago
I sometimes identify with something that Evelyn Waugh once said. A friend asked him how come he claimed to be a Christian, being such a cantankerous curmudgeon, such a master of cruel wit. Well, Waugh replied, imagine how horrid I’d be if I didn’t try to be a Christian. There’s something authentically Christian in that
The latest survey says that under half of us (42 per cent) identify as Christian, and that just over half have no religion. Does this show that we have finally turned the corner, and are no longer a Christian nation? Well, it’s a very curved corner – we’ve been turning it for about fifty years.
The other day I frowned at Love Island. I dislike adding (in my tiny way) to such shows’ publicity, but sometimes the obvious moral objection must be made, when sexuality is tackified, and when other commentators queue up to say what kitschy fun it is. The worldly pundit smiles at my earnestness: ‘It’s the culture
I quite enjoyed James Fergusson’s exploration of British Islam – Al-Britannia, My Country. If it is done intelligently, I approve of someone accentuating the positive, reminding us that the majority of British Muslims have successfully integrated to a large extent, and that optimism is warranted. But I have a couple of quibbles. He spends much
A certain sort of person likes to show how relaxed he or she is about sex. The current vehicle for such displays is Love Island, a reality show in which supposedly attractive young people are nudged to pair up, swap partners and so on. These people claim to find it refreshingly frank, anthropologically fascinating, harmless fun, a
In a sense it was the Liberal Democrats who did worst in this odd election. For the point of this party is to attract progressives who find Labour too dogmatic. And in the past two years Labour has been taken over by old-fashioned socialist dogma. It was the perfect opportunity to create a huge base
It is not enough for Muslims to say ‘We condemn terrorism’. Sure – we believe you. But something more is needed. What? It’s easy to get bogged down in the slightly wrong issue of violence and war. We should not expect Muslims to condemn all violence that claims a religious justification – for most war
France is a muddled nation, n’est-ce pas? And at the root of the muddle is, guess what, religion. Maybe the muddle is a godsend. For if the right were more united on religion, Marine Le Pen would surely have won. The Front National is the strongest far-right party in Western Europe, supported by about a third
This election was won two days before it was announced, on Easter Sunday. Theresa May put out an Easter message in which she suggested that British values had a Christian basis. It was her version of David Cameron’s message two years before, in which he said that Britain is a Christian country. She was rather
This election was won two days before it was announced, on Easter Sunday. Theresa May put out an Easter message in which she suggested that British values had a Christian basis. It was her version of David Cameron’s message two years before, in which he said that Britain is a Christian country. She was rather
Theresa May does a decent job of saying that Christianity is at the heart of our shared values. It’s a difficult thing to say without sounding disparaging of non-Christians, but I think it’s something worth saying. Some will say that the Prime Minister should stick to politics, especially when there’s so much politics to do,
How should Christians relate to the culture around them? That is the question raised by Rod Dreher’s article in the Spectator this week. He’s right that it’s a pretty fundamental question. If we Christians don’t know how to answer it, our message is likely to seem muddled. In common with many leading theologians of the last few decades, he claims
A new survey finds that a quarter of British people who describe themselves as Christian say they do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Well, it won’t surprise you to hear that I think they are on theologically dodgy ground. Christians should affirm the resurrection of Jesus, however much they struggle to reconcile it with
In yesterday’s Guardian, David Shariatmadari confronts the claim that Islam is an especially violent religion. The claim, he says, is undermined by the fact that jihadi terrorism is a very recent phenomenon. Yes, there is also the violence of empire-building in its history, but you could say this of Christianity too. ‘Aspects of Islamic teaching do
Pankaj Mishra’s book Age of Anger is good in parts, but also shows the weakness of leftist thought. It is a bold history of political ideas that traces the extremism and populism of our day to nineteenth-century sources. Both Isis supporters and Trump supporters are reacting to the insecurity caused by neoliberal globalisation, he argues. ‘Cosmopolitan
Omar Saif Ghobash, who is the United Arab Emirates ambassador to Russia, has written a good Muslim-reformist tract called Letters to a Young Muslim. There is plenty of passionate rhetoric denouncing rigidity, praising open-mindedness. There are plenty of insights that give the outsider a glimpse of his difficult inheritance (as a half-Arab, half-Russian boy educated
There was a good programme last week on Channel 4 about Muslims looking for love, or at least marriage. It was called ‘Extremely British Muslims’, and it did indeed show us some young Muslims who were very much like anyone else. But it was also a reminder that many Muslims have a deep-seated assumption about religion
