Nicholas Baines

LATEST ARTICLES ( 612 )

• Religious Literacy and Diplomacy

  Questions of religious literacy in media and politics are being articulated more loudly by the day. It is a truism that is almost embarrassing to articulate, bu... Read more

  Posted on 05 February 2015 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• BBC Religion

  It was announced last week that the BBC is to shake up its commissioning briefs (so to speak).According to reports, four of the BBC’s most senior commissioners... Read more

  Posted on 26 January 2015 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Paris Aftermath

  There isn’t much time for writing this blog at the moment. Life is full on, and my priorities lie elsewhere. One day I will get back to it properly. Read more

  Posted on 17 January 2015 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Lights out in Cologne

  This is the text of this morning’s Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.Not so long ago I stood on the steps of Cologne Cathedral in Germany... Read more

  Posted on 07 January 2015 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• 2015

  Happy New Year!I hope.Here are some (unedited) preliminary thoughts on Day One.Of course, for most people on the planet it promises to be no more happy than... Read more

  Posted on 01 January 2015 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Getting Stoned

  Boxing Day has brought – for some bizarre and inexplicable reason – to my memory songs by the Beautiful South and Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott. Read more

  Posted on 26 December 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Christmas Eve

  This is the text of this morning’s Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:Later this morning I shall make my way over to Bradford for a carol... Read more

  Posted on 24 December 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• “God Surprises Earth with Heaven”

  This is the text of a commissioned article published yesterday in the Yorkshire Post.“God surprises earth with heaven!”Now, that would be the sort of headline... Read more

  Posted on 21 December 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Cry of a Tiny Babe

  

  This is the text of this morning's Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2's Chris Evans Show. Guests in the studio were Tom Odell, Len Goodman, Alex Jones, Paul... Read more

  Posted on 19 December 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• On the Face of It

  

  The current rhetoric around immigration, asylum and 'foreigners' is not one might call constructive. Statistics are bandied around, particularly by politicians... Read more

  Posted on 06 December 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• 3 Points

  Apart from posting scripts and personal stuff, I haven't had time to get back to the sort of blogging that provokes or responds or interprets. Read more

  Posted on 01 December 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Unmerited Honour

  

  I have just returned from Jena in Germany where I was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität on Tuesday evening. Read more

  Posted on 27 November 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Whose Life is It Anyway?

  This is the text of this morning's Thought for the day on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.In a previous life I worked as a Russian linguist at GCHQ in Cheltenham. Read more

  Posted on 24 November 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Getting Down to Business

  This is the text of my Presidential Address to the first Diocesan Synod of the Diocese of Leeds (West Yorkshire the Dales) on Saturday 22 November 2014 in... Read more

  Posted on 22 November 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Children in Need (again)

  

  This is the text of this morning's Pause for Thought on the Chris Evans Show on BBC Radio 2 (with Michael Ball, Michelle Collins, Barbara Windsor, and a snatch... Read more

  Posted on 14 November 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• The Fall of the Wall

  

  This is the text of an article I published in the Yorkshire Post yesterday.Every English teenager should be required to go with me to Berlin and take a 100 metr... Read more

  Posted on 09 November 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Atheism and Poverty

  

  This morning I read Alan Johnson's moving memoir This Boy and it nearly brought me to tears. Without a shred of self-pity, the former Labour minister simply... Read more

  Posted on 27 October 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Holiday and the Heart of Darkness

  

  Yesterday I read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I grabbed it as we were leaving the house at 4am on Friday, an afterthought of nostalgia. Read more

  Posted on 26 October 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• If Music Be the Food of Love…

  

  The great thing about getting away on holiday is the time to think, reflect and consider. Arriving on holiday to the mother of all thunder storms (started... Read more

  Posted on 24 October 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• New Bishops, New Directions

  

  This morning the new Bishops of Bradford and Huddersfield were consecrated (not ‘concentrated’, as someone put it in a prayer last week) at York Minster. The... Read more

  Posted on 17 October 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY