The vision of Ralph Vaughan Williams
In reviving local and popular musical traditions, the composer found haunting new expressions of Englishness.
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Rowan Williams
Rowan Williams is former Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012, and a contributing writer to the New Statesman.
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The infinite art of John Donne
His life was blighted by poverty, but his poetry made exhilarating connections between sex, faith and death.
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Lucy Easthope reflects on life after catastrophe
The author reveals how the way we recover from disaster goes to the heart of what it means to…
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Putin believes he is defending Orthodox Christianity from the godless West
By supporting the war, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has both normalised sinful behaviour and polluted Russian Christian identity.
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What Dostoevsky knew about evil
The great Russian writer was no saint. But 200 years after his birth, his work shows how we might…
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The suppression of people-smuggling is as perilous and futile as the war on drugs
We fail to grasp that stepping up sanctions will not impact those already resigned to risking their lives.
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Rowan Williams’s Diary: Judging the Booker Prize, the ethics of climate change, and the birth of our first grandchild
I look forward to telling my grandson his birth was toasted within a few hours alongside the 2021 Booker…
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When God was an alpha male
How the Hebrew deity evolved from predatory strongman to a friend to human frailty.
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The courage of Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu has died aged 90. In this recent piece, Rowan Williams reflected on how his life was a…
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