For the first decade of the 2000s I was a vicar in suburban southwest London. Part of my inheritance from the previous regime was a church with close links to a cult. It was a very British kind of cult, with an emphasis on high culture, old-fashioned values and the 1662 Prayer-Book. A sepia-tinted nostalgia for old England was combined with an eclectic mix of Eastern mysticism and esoterica dredged from the freakier wilds of Victoriana. They ran a number of schools, including

I watched the Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics at my neighbour’s house. Part way through the ceremony I laughed and exclaimed: ‘Ha! A drag parody of the Last Supper!’ The other neighbours present also laughed, because the symbolism from Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper was clear. The Last Supper imagery was evident to millions around the world. For some, the obvious parody of Christian imagery was a step too far. Church leaders, particularly from the traditionalist evang

A friend of mine recently joined a new inclusive Christian network, and wanted to know if I planned to sign up. He used the phrase ‘standing with the LGBTQ+ community’. I hesitated before replying, just as I’d hesitated a decade earlier when asked a similar question at a church in the North of England. The leadership had decided, almost overnight, to affiliate to an inclusive church network, and asked everybody in leadership to sign up. When I hesitated it sparked a tirade fr

My interest in politics started at the age of 11. The secondary school I attended in small-town Warwickshire marked the 1974 General Election with a mock election of its own. Pupils stood as representatives of the political parties standing in the national poll. Hustings were held, speeches given, ballot boxes set up. I found myself drawn to the Communist candidate. He was tall and pale, with the hair of a prog rock bassist. He painted utopian word-pictures of the egalitarian

Are you religious? It’s a question the pollsters Gallup have been asking Americans since 1999 – and charting a slow decline in the percentage of the population saying yes. It appears in polls and surveys this side of the Atlantic too, including one I filled in the other day. The pollsters clearly feel the question is uncontroversial and unbiased, a helpful tool to winkle out the desired information. The same question crops up in online dating encounters. From experience, it t