Casting the first stone

Was there really nothing Stephen Cottrell could have done about the abuser priest hiding in plain sight in his diocese?

Hello! The Archbishop of York remains under heavy pressure to resign following a week of damning headlines over a safeguarding crisis in his own Diocese of Chelmsford. Were his hands as tied as he claims, and should he have broken church law to force out the vicar anyway?

Then we examine new proposals, coincidentally published this same week, to radically overhaul how safeguarding is run in the Church of England, including spinning out much of the work to independent external organisations.

And finally, a less weighty Christmas consideration of what is a lot of people’s favourite Christmas carol - O Holy Night. Did you know about the fascinating political and theological back story to its long journey from a proto-socialist 19th-century French layman to topping the charts on Classic FM?

Then we have our latest podcast (what might a Biblical theology of spiritual warfare have to say about the rise of artificial intelligence?), and the usual list of links to church news stories I’ve stum…