Rupert Shortt in conversation with Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Join us at Holy Trinity Church Sloane Square for a conversation with Rupert Shortt and Ayaan Hirsi Ali about Rupert’s new book “The Eclipse if Christianity and Why it Matters”.
There will be a talk by Rupert Shortt followed by a moderated conversation with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a chance for audience questions and the opportunity to buy the book and have it signed by Rupert.
'Lucid, Brilliant, accessible. A must read'
Ayaan Hirsi AliThe mainstream Churches are faltering – or even at risk of dying out – in their Western and Middle Eastern heartlands. Surveys confirm that only a minority of people in a country such as Britain now claim Christian allegiance. The pattern is being matched in neighbouring societies.
At the same time many opinion formers preach secularist ideology with a self-confidence shading into dogmatism. Others, unsure of their moorings, feel some residual attachment to spirituality, while being sceptical about the existence of God and other articles of belief.
Yet church teaching remains intellectually robust, as well as inspiring a transformative global presence. In this major and wide-ranging international study – both a report on the unsettling consequences of secularisation and a defence of a creed too often belittled by its opponents – Rupert Shortt outlines Christianity’s fading profile in the present, but also argues compellingly that Europe’s historic faith remains critical to the survival of a humane culture.
Composer Joby Talbot’s acclaimed choral work, Path of Miracles, takes its inspiration from the famous ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago di Compostela in northern Spain, chronicling the 500-mile journey from the foot of the northern Pyrenees. Join London Oriana Choir, special guest singers from the award-winning, original commissioning ensemble Tenebrae and Dominic Ellis-Peckham for a truly memorable and dramatic performance of this unique choral masterpiece.
Haydn’s mass was dedicated to Nicolaus Esterhazy, his patron from whom we take our name, and in this performance it is paired with Holst’s little known choral masterpiece, considered by the composer one of his best works.
Doors open from 6:30pm for a 7pm performance. Tickets are £25, or £10 for under 25 year olds, and are available at the website below or on the door. Programmes will be available for purchase on the door for £2.
in London Concert Choir for an evening of sacred music from two of the great English choral composers, in the perfect setting.
The understated beauty and emotion of Herbert Howells’ interwar Requiem offers the perfect foil for the reverent Victorian grandeur of John Stainer’s Passiontide oratorio, The Crucifixion.
Howells’ unaccompanied Requiem brings his unmistakable compositional voice and very personal interpretation to the Church’s liturgy for the dead. Composed in 1932, but unpublished until 1980, it provided the genesis of the more complex and widely acclaimed Hymnus Paradisi. With characteristic precision and clarity, Howells evokes loss, grief, reflection and redemption, blending elements of the Latin mass and The Book of Common Prayer.