Lucy Jones unpacks our new research on motherhood for the Guardian. 27/07/2026

”We hear about the ruinous effect of low birthrates, but comparatively little of the difficulties mothers face.” 

Lucy Jones writes for The Guardian unpacking the findings from our new report Motherhood, Inside Out and what the experiences of new mothers reveals about our current value system.

Read the article here. 

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Nick Spencer was quoted in the Guardian on how a Catholic Prime Minister will play out in our wider culture. 25/07/2026

Nick Spencer was quoted in Guardian article by Aamna Mohdin, unpacking the differences between Christianity in politics in the US vs the UK in light of new PM Andy Burnham’s Catholic faith. 

“Nick Spencer, a senior fellow at the thinktank Theos, said he believed there were many reasons why we were seeing such different expressions of Christian politics in the UK and US.

“Culture war politics really thrives on a narrative of exclusion,” he said. “But its much harder to argue that you are being socially, culturally and politically marginalised as a Christian in this country. If you crown the head of state, if you have 26 bishops in the Lords, you are already quite close to the heart of power.” In the US, he said, pastors were able to take their congregations in different political directions because the church landscape was much more fragmented. 

Read the full article in the Guardian here.

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Nick Spencer appears on BBC Radio 4’s Church Going, with Giles Fraser. 20/07/2026

What is the relationship between England’s national and religious identities?

In Episode 2 of Giles Fraser’s ‘Church Going’ series, Nick Spencer appears alongside Tom Holland, Alice Roberts, Bishop Arun Arora and more to discuss England as a Christian nation and the anxieties surrounding this. 

Tune in here.

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Our 2025 Annual Lecture with Andy Burnham was featured in The Observer. 19/07/2026

“Today his identity is still wrapped up in football and politics, but his relationship with the church is more equivocal. Last October he gave a lecture on religion and society to the thinktank Theos. In the Q&A afterwards he acknowledged his debt to one of the great voices of liberal Catholic social teaching, the former Archbishop of Liverpool. “Derek Worlock was a big influence. I was an altar boy. I used to have to press the button on his tape–recorded messages in the church. And to me, that kind of church was always about speaking for people without power; those who needed to be built up.”

But in the lecture itself, Burnham mentioned Pope Francis just twice, Jesus and spirituality not at all, and devolution 14 times. It was an orthodox political text with no religious flavour and – through what it left out more than what it said – placed Burnham in the right pigeon hole: a cultural Catholic who ‘doesn’t do God’. Religion is a piece of the Burnham jigsaw but far from the whole picture.”

Read the full piece by Ceri Thomas in the Observer here.

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Nick Spencer reviews J.D. Vance’s new book ‘Communion’ for the Spectator. 14/07/2026

Curiously, the President is almost invisible in Vance’s latest memoir – so perhaps the VP is attempting to distance himself, at least as far as his current job allows.

Nick Spencer reviews the new book ‘Communion’ by US Vice President J.D. Vance for the Spectator.

Read it here.

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Hannah Rich speaks to ABC’s Religion and Ethics programme. 06/07/2026

The man set to become the next prime minister of Britain, Andy Burnham, is best known as the popular and successful mayor of Greater Manchester in northern England. 

But long before that, he was a pious altar boy in his local Catholic church in Liverpool. 

Burnham has referred frequently to his Catholic background and values, even if he observes only some of the church’s teaching. 

How much will faith shape his prime ministership? 

Hannah Rich unpacks Andy Burnham’s Catholic heritage and the continued influence of faith on his policies for ABC’s Religion and Ethics report.

Tune in here.

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Nick Spencer appears on the Church Times podcast unpacking the influence of Catholicism on Andy Burnham’s politics. 03/07/2026

Paul Vallely and Nick Spencer join Ed Thornton on the Church Times podcast to discuss how Andy Burnham’s Roman Catholicism influences his politics.

This follows Nick Spencer’s Church Times Analysis piece on the same subject. 

Tune in to the episode here.

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Nick Spencer writes for Church Times on Andy Burnham’s “safe” faith.

Senior Fellow Nick Spencer unpacks Prime Minister–in–waiting Andy Burnham’s faith and its impact on politics for Church Times.

Read the full piece here.  

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George Lapshynov writes for the Times on the importance of cathedrals. 20/06/2026

Researcher and co–author of our latest report on cathedrals, George Lapshynov, unpacks the significance of cathedrals on civic life for The Times’ Credo column. 

Read the full piece here.

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Chine McDonald unpacks Steven Bartlett’s self–optimisation controversy for BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Programme. 14/06/2026

Comments from Steven Bartlett, claiming that drinking three glasses of wine ruined three days of his life, have sparked controversy.

Chine McDonald unpacks our obsession with productivity for BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Programme following her blog on the subject.

Tune in from 11:18.

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Host Joe Wilson discusses our ‘Living Stones’ report with Interim Dean of Carlisle Cathedral, Michael Everitt. 24/05/2026

Catch the discussion about our report Living Stones: English Cathedrals as Sacred Spaces in Changing Times from 8:08am. 

Tune in here.

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Research identifies ‘warm but passive’ attachment of general public. 18/05/2026

Madeleine Davies unpacks our latest report Living Stones: English cathedrals as sacred spaces in changing times for the Church Times. 

Read it here.

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The discovery of aliens would not render faith ridiculous, writes Nick Spencer. 15/05/2026

“I like a moon mission as much as the next man, but even I thought the coverage of Artemis’s recent lunar trip was a bit excessive. Don’t misunderstand me. I am in awe of the physical, emotional, and technical strengths of astronauts who endure conditions that would reduce me to jelly. But I was also aware of how the coverage was essentially an antidote to all our other, somewhat grimmer, sublunary news.”

Nick Spencer writes on the possibility of alien life and its theological implications for the Church Times.

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Dr Madeleine Pennington appears on BBC Radio 4’s Beyond Belief. 12/05/2026

Giles Fraser digs deep into graveyards and asks how we remember those we have loved and lost. He meets Johanna Holmes OBE, Chair of the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, to discover this graveyard’s hidden secrets.

He’s joined by Dr Madeleine Pennington, Head of Research at the religious think tank Theos and author of their 2023 report Love, Grief and Hope – emotional responses to death and dying in the UK, Glasgow–based author, journalist and blogger Peter Ross, author of ‘A Tomb With a View: The Stories and Glories of Graveyards’ and Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg.

Listen to Madeleine here.

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Chine McDonald analyses the claims that young people are showing a renewed interest in spirituality. 17/04/2026

From the boxing ring to The Traitors, something has shifted. We’re seeing a renewed interest in faith and spirituality, particularly amongst young people.

Chine McDonald analyses the claims for the Church Times. 

Read the full article here. 

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Researcher, Esmé Partridge, was quoted in The Spectator about her research on Gen Z Christians. 30/03/2026

Similar patterns have been seen by Esmé Partridge, a researcher at the Christian think tank Theos who is currently studying new churchgoing patterns among young adults for the Church of England.

“In my research,” said Partridge, “I’ve been able to speak to over thirty young people who have recently started attending church. Naturally there are whole variety of positive influences that have personally led them there – social media, discovering Christian authors like C. S. Lewis, even learning about other world religions – but perhaps the reason these explorations are occurring now rather that say, ten years ago, is because of the absence of hostility towards Christianity in mainstream culture and the breaking down of barriers that once closed it off as an area of spiritual exploration. We’ve moved beyond both the Boomer rebellion against religion and the New Atheism of the early 2010s – today’s climate is one of curiosity and openness.”

Read the full article by Bijan Omrani in The Spectator here.

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Freedom of religion and belief extends to all faiths and none, or it is meaningless, argues Hannah Rich. 27/03/2026

Senior Researcher, Hannah Rich, writes for the Church Times responding to Nick Timothy MP’s comments on Muslims breaking their Ramadan fast with an iftar meal and call to prayer in Trafalgar Square. 

Read the full article here. 

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What if the so–called “AI doomers” are right? Watch Nathan Mladin’s research seminar for The Faraday Institute. 10/03/2026

What if the so–called “AI doomers” are right, just not in the way they imagine?

In this lecture at The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Dr Nathan Mladin suggests AI existential risk discourse is best read as a form of secular apocalyptic literature, and argues that the deeper threat it unveils is anthropological: AI is entrenching a diminished, shrunken view of what it means to be human. We expect more and more of machines and think less and less of ourselves – anthropological pessimism and idolatrous faith in technology feeding off each other in a condition he calls “techno–nihilism”. Reclaiming richer visions of what it means to be human, and to flourish, he argues, is now an urgent task.

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Hannah Rich speaks on the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life’s event on Faith in Education. 04/03/2026

The Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life hosted an online panel discussion which convened professionals, researchers and specialists in religious education (RE) to talk about the continuing importance and relevance of the subject in Britain. The discussion covered topics including what skills students gain from RE that they might not from other subjects on the curriculum, the value of religious literacy, and what good RE looks like.

Senior researcher, Hannah Rich, features on the panel alongside Alexis Stones (Senior teaching fellow, PGCE & MA Religious Education at University College London), and Dr Kathryn Wright (Chief Executive at Culham St Gabriel’s Trust). The discussion was moderated by presenter and broadcaster Rae Duke.

Interested in worldviews and education? Watch our film ‘Nobody Stands Nowhere’ here.

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Nick Spencer reviews ‘The New Dark Age’ by Nigel Biggar for the Church Times. 13/02/2026

”The New Dark Age, which, although short, bristles with examples of academic vices and institutional weaknesses.”

Nick Spencer reviews ‘The New Dark Age: Why liberals must win the culture wars’ by Nigel Biggar for the Church Times.

Read it here.

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Nick Spencer unpacks the relationship between Bible–reading and mass literacy for the Church Times. 06/02/2026

”In our ever spiralling, splenetic, and spiteful culture wars, there is at least one thing on which we can all agree, whether we be woke Liberal or gammon Reform: reading is good for you.”

Nick Spencer unpacks the relationship between Bible–reading and mass literacy for the Church Times. 

Read it here.

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Nick Spencer and Rob Barward–Symmons feature in the Times. 16/01/2026

Nick Spencer and Rob Barward–Symmons were quoted in the Times commenting on whether Gen Z men are becoming increasingly warm towards Christianity.

Read the article here.

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Nick Spencer was quoted in the Guardian concerning the CofE response to far–right Christianity. 28/12/2025

In January, C of E bishops will discuss the church’s response to Christian nationalism and the far right at one of their regular meetings. Nick Spencer, a senior fellow at the Christian thinktank Theos, who is embarking on a two–year study of Christian nationalism, said the C of E faced a genuine dilemma. If it embraced rightwing activists proclaiming newfound Christianity, it would “get its head kicked in”; if it slammed the door in their face, it would be “missionally–speaking a catastrophe”.

The church is “damned if they do, damned if they don’t”, he said. “I don’t think it can remain silent, but its response risks underlining the narrative that the C of E is only for the comfortable middle–class.”

You can read the full article in the Guardian here.

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Researcher George Lapshynov was quoted in UnHerd article unpacking the increased popularity of Eastern Orthodoxy amongst young men. 26/12/2025

Lapshynov points out that this can leave them exposed. “Most Orthodox priests don’t have an online presence,” he tells me, “which creates a vacuum into which less official voices can enter. That means the [online] space is saturated with people not eligible to preach.” More often than not, that space is filled by the Orthobro.

Read the full article in UnHerd here.

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Chine McDonald writes for the Financial Times on the surprising places we find spiritual practices. 25/12/2025

Read the Financial Times article by Director, Chine McDonald here.

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