Nicholas Baines

LATEST ARTICLES ( 598 )

• 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

• The Need for Good Journalism

  This is the text of an article published in the Yorkshire Post today:Has British journalism really improved? Or was the Leveson Inquiry just something to... Read more

  Posted on 06 October 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Iraq Again

  In his book Culture and the Death of God Terry Eagleton quotes Voltaire being rude about the English. “They give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts,” he... Read more

  Posted on 25 September 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Abba

  is best known as the Swedish poppers who at least gave us singalongamammamia. But, it is also the way Christians pray – abba being the intimate term of address... Read more

  Posted on 29 August 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Two New Bishops

  

  It's a bit like the London buses: you wait for long enough and two come along at once.Downing Street has today announced the appointment of two Area Bishops... Read more

  Posted on 26 August 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• As I Was Saying…

  The timing is terrible. The furore over my letter to the Prime Minister has exploded on the day I begin a family holiday in a place with no mobile signal and... Read more

  Posted on 17 August 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Letter to Government

  This is the text of a letter I have sent to the Prime Minister and which will be referenced in national media tomorrow.Recognising the complexities of such... Read more

  Posted on 16 August 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• The Point of Education

  

  This is the text of this morning's Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4's Today programme:It's perhaps indicative of the original trauma itself that yesterday I... Read more

  Posted on 15 August 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Clearing out the Demon

  

  One of the burdens of having written a blog for some years is that when you stop for a while people read into it something that isn't there. Read more

  Posted on 09 August 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Any Dream Won’t Do

  

  This is the text of this morning's Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. I wanted, within the constraints of length, to shine a different light... Read more

  Posted on 08 August 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• By the Rivers of Babylon

  

  This is the script of this morning's Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, written in the face of the horrors of Gaza, Syria, Ukraine and all th... Read more

  Posted on 31 July 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Bishops

  Well, today the General Synod finally voted to make it possible for women to be made bishops. Which means that before too long we should be able to stop... Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Dying Matters

  The Church has got to face up to the reality of the world as it is lived. So, Lord Carey has changed his mind about assisted dying by polarising ‘compassion’ an... Read more

  Posted on 12 July 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• Are We Nearly There Yet…?

  

  Appointing bishops is a long process. A year ago yesterday the General Synod voted to dissolve three dioceses and create a single one for West Yorkshire & the... Read more

  Posted on 09 July 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY

• The Meaning of Brazilian

  

  I understand that a Brazilian has something to do with a close shave. (And that's as far as I am going with that one.) The World Cup semi-final last night... Read more

  Posted on 09 July 2014 RELIGION, SOCIETY, SPIRITUALITY