Holy Smoke

In this end-of-year episode of Holy Smoke, Damian Thompson discusses the abuse scandals that have forced the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to resign his post, his predecessor Lord Carey to resign his ministry as a priest, and now threaten the survival of the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cotterill.  These developments are an unprecedented disaster for the Church of England – but how many Roman Catholics realise that Pope Francis would also be facing demands for his resignation if the details of various horrifying scandals were not being allegedly concealed by the Vatican and its media allies? 

Which 20th-century Scrooge had the following to say about the celebration of Christmas?  ‘It gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure… Anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own. It's almost blackmail… Can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers?’ Step forward C.S. Lewis, beloved Christian apologist and children’s author, whose splenetic denunciation of ‘the whole dreary business’ of Christmas and mean-spirited comments about carol singers are hard to reconcile with his reputation for benevolence. To make sense of the author’s views, Damian Thompson is joined by the renowned theologian and C.S. Lewis expert Prof Alister McGrath for a Christmas episode of Holy Smoke. They talk about the influence Lewis had on McGrath’s own conversion, the significance of the nativity and the question of whether the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s birth are apocryphal. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Thousands of Brits will be attending Christmas and carol services throughout December. Yet festive attendance masks the reality that church congregations just aren’t holding up. The most optimistic of estimates suggest that regular church attendance has almost halved in the UK since 2009. This is just one of the factors that has led the historian and writer A.N. Wilson, in the Christmas edition of The Spectator this week, to declare that the end of Christendom is nigh. On this episode of Holy Smoke, A.N. Wilson joins Damian Thompson to discuss his thesis. Like Platonism, is Christianity doomed to become extinct in practice? When was the last time England was truly, and fervently, religious? And are innovations such as female priests a symptom – or a cause – of the Church’s decline? You can read more from A.N. Wilson on his Substack. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.  

As we approach the end of a uniquely painful year for the Royal Family, the King's trusted biographer, Robert Hardman, joins Damian Thompson to discuss the Monarch’s faith. As Robert recently revealed in his updated biography of Charles III, the cancer-stricken King has been drawing solace from a Christian faith that has become increasingly explicit over the years. He still thinks of himself as the ‘defender of faith’, but now also unapologetically uses his ancient title of ‘Defender of the Faith’, meaning Christianity. Specifically, he is more attracted than ever to the traditions of the Orthodox Church into which his father was baptised.  But, as Robert has revealed, the current Prince of Wales is emphatically not religious (unlike his wife, who is reported to be exploring her own spirituality in the wake of her own diagnosis). What will this mean when William eventually inherits the position of Supreme Governor of the Church of England?  Produced by Patrick Gibbons.