80 episodes

The podcast, brought to you by Premier, which takes you deeper into the stories impacting Christians around the world. Each week we’ll dig into a particular issue in the church world and go behind the headlines, hearing from those directly involved, experts, theologians, activists, journalists and others to make sense of the story and why it matters.

Premier Christian Newscast Premier Christian

    • News
    • 5.0 • 2 Ratings

The podcast, brought to you by Premier, which takes you deeper into the stories impacting Christians around the world. Each week we’ll dig into a particular issue in the church world and go behind the headlines, hearing from those directly involved, experts, theologians, activists, journalists and others to make sense of the story and why it matters.

    Faith in the beautiful game

    Faith in the beautiful game

    Many of England’s biggest football clubs – today some of the country’s largest entertainment businesses – were originally started by local churches 150 years ago. Fascinatingly, the connections between Christianity and football are not solely a historical quirk either. There are Christians playing the game at every level, managing teams and running clubs, while churches use the sport for both outreach and pastoral care. So much so that even the thoroughly secular Football Association held a jamboree at Wembley Stadium last year to celebrate the interplay between the beautiful game and Christianity. This week’s episode digs deeper into the links between the church and our national pastime, exploring everything from muscular Christianity to faith literacy to evangelism inside the dressing room.
    Guests this week:
    • Michael Wakelin, Norwich City fan and former BBC religion producer who organised the FA’s Wembley event
    • Graham Daniels, former player and manager, now director at Cambridge United and head of Christians in Sport

    • 36 min
    Gay blessings in the Catholic Church

    Gay blessings in the Catholic Church

    Just before Christmas, the Catholic Church surprisingly announced priests could offer pastoral blessings to same-sex couples for the first time. The announcement has been a jolt of energy to the church, delighting liberals who have been quick to publicise their blessings, and equally infuriating conservatives. Why has the backlash been so vociferous, and what might this mean for the remaining years of Francis’s pontificate? Is it actually that big a reform after all, or has it all been blown out of proportion? Will it entrench schisms within the Catholic Church worldwide or push the denomination firmly towards progressive reforms in the future?
    Guests this week:
    • Catherine Pepinster, freelance Catholic journalist and former editor of The Tablet
    • Charles Collins, managing editor of Crux, a leading Catholic news website

    • 41 min
    Money, politics, power and the church: The concerning tweets of Sir Paul Marshall

    Money, politics, power and the church: The concerning tweets of Sir Paul Marshall

    Almost nobody has heard of Sir Paul Marshall until a few weeks ago. But, thanks to his Twitter account, the multi-millionaire hedge funder and media mogul has become briefly famous, or perhaps infamous. An investigation has revealed Marshall had a private Twitter account which had liked and re-posted dozens of hardline anti-Muslim and far-right tweets. As well as owning a slew of right-wing media outlets, Marshall is also deeply embedded in the church world, sitting on boards and funding projects including the HTB church planting network and the Church of England’s new Centre for Cultural Witness. Should we care that a man who has pumped in millions of pounds into church ministry may hold in private quite extreme views? Are Christians too casual about partnering with people who actually hold very different values to them? How should we think about the growing numbers of Christian figures who are getting involved in right-leaning politics, and perhaps drifting towards the radical fringes in the process?
    I’m Tim Wyatt, and you’re listening to the Premier Christian Newscast. This week, I’m joined by Sam Hailes and Emma Fowle from Premier Christianity magazine to discuss Paul Marshall’s dubious tweets, and what this might tell us about conservative politics in the church.

    • 29 min
    After the lament, action? Racism in the Church of England

    After the lament, action? Racism in the Church of England

    After the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, the Church of England embarked on a racial reckoning just like so many institutions. This produced a landmark report and a new racial justice unit. But more than three years on, has any progress been made in dismantling prejudice and discrimination in the national church? Were the tumultuous events of 2020 a turning point, as the hierarchy hoped? We speak to ethnic minority clergy, bishops, the racial justice team and others to assess what life is like today for people of colour in the Church of England and if the tumultuous events of 2020 have actually sparked real change.
    Guests include:
    • Guy Hewitt, the C of E’s racial justice director
    • Martyn Snow, the Bishop of Leicester
    • Augustine Tanner-Ihm and Alwyn Pereira, two vicar whistle-blowers who experienced direct racism
    • Elizabeth Henry, formerly the church’s national advisor on race and ethnicity
    • Brunel James, part of the national racial justice unit

    • 1 hr 12 min
    Is freedom of speech really under threat?

    Is freedom of speech really under threat?

    A Christian gospel singer was approached by the police while busking in central London. In a video of the conversation, one of the officers tells the singer she is not allowed to sing church songs outside of church grounds, and later sticks her tongue out. For many of those furiously sharing this video online, it is further evidence of how the secular authorities in this country are trying to unfairly push Christianity out of the public square. But is there really a problem with freedom of speech in the UK, or is this just one isolated incident of a confused copper not understanding the law? Is Britain actually becoming increasingly intolerant of orthodox belief, and if so, what – if anything – should the church be doing about this?
    • Read more about the gospel busker and the police video here https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/met-police-apologises-after-officer-told-christian-busker-she-couldn-t-sing-outside-church-grounds
    • Read Heather Tomlinson’s magazine feature on free speech here https://www.premierchristianity.com/features/is-free-speech-under-threat/17106.article

    • 36 min
    Christians in Iran

    Christians in Iran

    Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the government of Iran has sought to tightly control its small Christian minority and suppress the spread of Christianity throughout the population. But the Women Life Freedom anti-government protest movement has rocked the Islamist regime. Millions of Iranians have defied the strict interpretation of Islam the government espouses, prompting a violent backlash from the state. What impact has this convulsion had on the persecuted church in Iran? How has the church continued to grow despite the crackdowns? And is there any hope for Iranians to be given genuine freedom to worship any time soon? This week we’re digging into stories of the persecuted church in Iran, speaking with exiles and family members of Christians in prison, to better understand what price believers must pay to remain faithful to Jesus in the Islamic Republic.

    • 44 min

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