What good are the arts ?

I note an interesting debate on Radio 3's Night Waves on the history of understandings of what the arts are capable of achieving; a debate that can't entirely avoid the religious nature of that claim until at least the nineteenth century, and arguably beyond. Participants included John Carey, Edith Hall and Jude Kelly. It's available on the iPlayer service.

Another 'Catholic novel'

What could be more Catholic than a novel set in Lourdes ? Such is Michael Arditti's latest, Jubilate, which is reviewed in the Telegraph, the Independent, and by Peter Stanford in the Guardian

Donald Bernard

The importance of gospel in the development of post-war Christian popular music for worship has occasionally been remarked upon, but seldom documented. In this connection I notice an obituary of Donald Bernard, founding pastor of the first congregation of the New Testament Assembly in 1961; read it in the Guardian.

Romantic Moderns

I note several reviews of this recent book by Alexandra Harris: amongst others, Kathryn Hughes in the Guardian, Simon Heffer in the Spectator and Boyd Tonkin in the Independent.

I've yet to read the book, but her tracing of another strand to the usual 'conservative English/modernist continentals' opposition is of some importance in relation to what some within the churches were attempting at the time. The murals at Berwick,, associated with George Bell, are explicitly mentioned by Daisy Hay.

Harris is on the English staff at the University of Liverpool.

Anglo-Catholicism, theology and the arts, 1918-70

In 2008 I gave a lecture to the Anglo-Catholic History Society on this topic. Having not published it elsewhere in the meantime, it is now available in SAS-Space. It ventures a parallel interpretation of the trajectories of church engagement with music, religious drama and the visual arts; and of the place of the arts in understandings of the relationship between Christianity and British culture. Read it in SAS-Space.

Frank Kermode

Rather belatedly, I note two obituaries of Frank Kermode in the Guardian and Independent. Both pick up on his interest in religious narrative, which issued in the The Literary Guide to the Bible (1987), co-edited with Robert Alter.

Radical carols

I note a little ripple of interest in Christmas carols and the recovery of their folk origins and occasionally radical nature. Esther Addley wrote to this effect in the Guardian, and BBC4 followed up with Howard Goodall on Sunday on their 'secret history' (available on the iPlayer for the next five days.)

The church and censorship of the theatre

I'm delighted to be able to announce that an article of mine on this subject has been accepted for a forthcoming volume of Studies in Church History. There are some revisions to make, but it examines the private correspondence between the archbishops of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain over stage plays that were received for licensing between 1909 and 1949. Dealing mostly with archbishops Davidson and Lang, it examines the grounds on which the archbishops advised for or against the licensing of plays, and situates the relationship between archbishop and Lord Chamberlain in relation to the peculiar position of Cantuar at the heart of the 'establishment'. It should appear in 2012.

The 'Catholic novel'

I note a minor flurry of interest from the Guardian in 'Catholic' novelists, around the time of the Pope's visit in September. David Lodge wrote most interestingly on Muriel Spark's Memento Mori, and D.J. Taylor on the theme at large. There was also an interview with Piers Paul Read to accompany his new novel The Misogynist.

War memorials and the Church of England

I'm delighted to be able to say that my article on the Church of England and war memorials after 1945 is available to read in SAS-Space. It appeared in the Forum for Modern Language Studies in 2008, but is now available on an open-access basis. It explores the debates concerning the relationship between beauty, utility and the notion of "Christian civilisation", particularly with regard to the reconstruction of bombed churches.