Jerusalem – for Christians, Jews and Muslims – is both a city and an idea
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: It’s the object of overwhelming projection, a place of dreams and longing. There can be no political peace there until Jerusalem the golden is understood
Bad Santa: how we turned Saint Nicholas into a symbol of greed
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: Materialism has swamped the real meaning of Advent, and transformed a fourth-century bishop into the grotesque patron saint of shopping centre grottoes
How Meghan Markle might bring the royals closer to Christ the King
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: If Prince Harry’s fiancee can bring some of her campaigning spirit for the dispossessed into the Windsor mix, the monarchy will be all the richer for it
It’s called effective altruism – but is it really the best way to do good?
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: The reduction of morality to a data-driven calculation has proved especially attractive in an age where Stem disciples make so much of the cultural running
Hedd Wyn: the shepherd poet whose story shows the stupidity of war
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: Remembrance is too easily purloined by those who want to celebrate the sort of nationalistic chauvinism that led so many young men to pointless deaths
Before Balfour: the Reformation helped to create the state of Israel
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: The Israel that David Lloyd George was won over to through Sunday school was a merger of Christian theological fantasy and British national self-aggrandisement
Universal credit is designed to blame the poor for their poverty
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: At my vicarage door, I am seeing the terrible impact of these changes to the benefits system. It is nothing short of gross malevolence on the part of the Tories
Still puzzled by the Brexit vote? Take yourself off to Blakenall Heath
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: Brexit logic in our deprived towns goes something like this: so what if the country collapses economically? At least then they will know what it feels like to be us
The truth about capitalism is out as Marx’s magic cap starts to slip
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: A century after the rise of the Bolsheviks, the young are reading Karl Marx again – and faith in the superstitious beliefs that underpin market economies is faltering
Like the prophets of old, Colin Kaepernick uses prayer as protest
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: America itself has become the object of its own collective worship, with Donald Trump the Herod of its civic religion. But loyalty to God will always beat loyalty to the state
The wrong sort of voter? There’s no such thing, AC Grayling
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: Grayling revives a fear of the mob that’s as old as Plato. Brexit convinced our elite that ordinary people were not intelligent enough to know what’s best for them
The disestablishment of the church is now necessary and inevitable
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: Now over half the UK population have no religion, it’s time the church stopped being courtiers of the establishment and reclaimed its counter-cultural voice
Why the rise of the robots could allow humans to flourish again
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: Nobody’s job is safe. But a citizen’s income in a post-work world could see us avoid the Terminator scenario and return to pre-capitalist sources of value
It took the horrors of the trenches to finally bring a democracy to death
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: On a visit to the grave of a relative killed in Flanders, I saw how the War Graves Commission 100 years ago helped obliterate social divisions among the dead
Why America’s antisemites can hate Jews but still claim to admire Israel
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: If Israel’s PM has trouble denouncing US neo-nazism, it’s possibly because the far right of both countries support the concept of a secure homeland based on race
Getting worked up about ‘RIP’ is itself an Orange indulgence
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: What makes the Orange Order’s theological complaint so pointless is that the majority of people who say ‘Rest in peace’ do not intend it as a prayer at all
Universities stop spying on their students? Now that’s a radical idea
Giles Fraser
Loose canon: Talking radical nonsense – and generally learning in the end that it is radical nonsense – is partly what higher education is for. Snooping on Muslims isn’t