The Fraying Fabric of the Church of England

Stephen Daisley

St. Paul’s Cathedral in London recently partnered with Fabric, a nightclub, to produce contemporary music concerts in the church. It’s a transparent and doomed bid for money and relevancy by the flailing Church of England, writes Stephen Daisley.

“If it hopes to guide and pastor this nation of lost sheep, the Church of England ought to offer what worldly institutions cannot: tradition, custom, and continuity; the solace of the sacred, and a glimpse of the Divine. No concert, not even the most respectful and refined, can compete with the angelic suite hymned in Heaven when God’s house is kept holy for his people to visit him.”

Talkin’ God and Football

Matthew Schmitz

From the October issue: Host of the SEC football call-in show Paul Finebaum often takes on a clerical role with his callers. In between jabs at rival teams, callers eagerly and casually talk about God, “sharing prayer requests, giving thanks for his blessings, and encouraging each other to turn to him,” writes Matthew Schmitz. It’s a revealing look at how regular Americans approach religion.

“In recent years, Christians have debated the possibilities for promoting public Christianity under the headings of Catholic integralism and Protestant Christian nationalism. But any renewal of public Christianity in America would likely look a lot more like what one gets on The Finebaum Show: muddily ecumenical, Protestant-inflected, at times Catholic-tending, and Jewish-friendly.”

The People Who Think AI Might Kill Us Are Building It Anyway

Ned Desmond

In case you missed it: The second edition of our new tech and AI newsletter, The Widening Gyre, went out last Thursday. Author Ned Desmond broke down the reaction to the Hugging Face incident, and why AI agents escaping their controls is doing little to slow down development. Subscribe here with one click.