Nick Spencer

London

Senior Fellow at Theos Think Tank

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Articles

Jones making mark on clay as she reaches last eight

3 weeks ago | au.news.yahoo.com | Nick Spencer

Rising Australian star Emerson Jones continued to justify her No.1 seeding at the French Open when she moved into the quarter-finals of the girls' singles with a straight-sets victory over Spain's Charo Esquiva Banuls. The 16-year-old from the Gold Coast had already looked impressive on clay this week, beating Capucine Jauffret of the US, and then Czechia's Vendula Valdmannova, a Wimbledon semi-finalist last year, both in three sets.
Ebden and Peers edged out in Paris thriller

3 weeks ago | canberratimes.com.au | Nick Spencer

John Peers (left) and Matt Ebden only teamed up on tour this year. Photo: Dave Hunt/AAP PHOTOSVeteran Australian doubles duo Matt Ebden and John Peers' hopes of repeating their Paris triumph in last year's Olympic Games on the clay of Roland Garros have hit the buffers in a titanic quarter-final against Brits Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski. Subscribe now for unlimited access.
Dr Nick Spencer – Science, Religion and Alien Life - Scientific and Medical Network

1 month ago | scientificandmedical.net | Nick Spencer

What would the discovery of (intelligent) alien life do to our idea of human uniqueness and to religious belief? The prospect of intelligent alien life has always been seen as vaguely challenging to humanity, and especially to religious belief. Quite apart from any actual threat aliens might pose, they bring a more general existential anxiety. What if humans are not unique? What if we are nothing like as special or as intelligent as we like to think?
‘A pandora’s box’: our panel tackle the assisted dying debate

1 month ago | hyphenonline.com | Nadia Khan |Nick Spencer |Nathan Stilwell

Dr Nadia Khan, consultant in palliative care, British Islamic Medical AssociationMuslim healthcare professionals in the UK are confronting what it means to open Pandora’s box: death now being framed as a credible “treatment option” for those with life-limiting illness. Much of the debate on the proposed assisted dying (or more accurately, assisted suicide) law has been an arena where nuanced perspectives have collided with dogma.
Analysis: Religious revival? It’s complicated

1 month ago | churchtimes.co.uk | Nick Spencer

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have a saying. “One stone is a stone. Two stones make a feature. Three stones make a wall.” It is a maxim worth bearing in mind when we read about surveys that claim to detect signs of religious revival. Having perused these data for nearly 30 years, I have become tired, and a little cynical, about such claims. And yet, recent trends have caused even an exhausted sceptic like me to take note.
Jonathan Sumption: why voters have lost faith in democracy

2 months ago | thetablet.co.uk | Nick Spencer

I speak to Jonathan Sumption in the kind of the room I would like to be resurrected in. We’re in the small, elegant study on the ground floor of his late seventeenth-century detached house overlooking Greenwich Park in London. Sunlight scatters across the erudite volumes that grace the shelves that stretch from floor to ceiling. Even the loo is book-lined, biographies of Bach, Mendelssohn and the 29 volumes of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians laid out for curious privy-goers.
The story of Noah’s flood will never go out of fashion

Mar 26, 2025 | spectator.com.au | Nick Spencer

Noah and the Flood in Western Thought Cambridge University Press, pp.407, 35 ‘They put the behemoths in the hold along with the rhinos, the hippos and the elephants. It was a sensible decision to use them as ballast, but you can imagine the stench.’ So begins Julian Barnes’s quirky novel A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, through which the story of Noah and the flood flows like an underground river.
The story of Noah’s flood will never go out of fashion

Mar 25, 2025 | spectator.co.uk | Nick Spencer

‘They put the behemoths in the hold along with the rhinos, the hippos and the elephants. It was a sensible decision to use them as ballast, but you can imagine the stench.’ So begins Julian Barnes’s quirky novel A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, through which the story of Noah and the flood flows like an underground river. As Philip C. Almond shows in this impressively erudite book, the tale courses through two millennia of western thought with similar power.
Analysis: What does ‘Judaeo-Christian’ mean?

Mar 13, 2025 | churchtimes.co.uk | Nick Spencer

IN THIS section last week, Canon Rod Garner gave some clarity to that opaque and divisive word “woke” (Analysis, 7 March). He did so in the context of the recent Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference, which sought to criticise “wokery” in defence of the West and its “Judaeo-Christian” heritage. That word — “Judaeo-Christian” — so often encountered in the company of Big Serious Nouns (“heritage”, “culture”, “civilisation”, “values”) merits equal attention.
Are Trump supporters feeling buyer’s remorse?

Mar 12, 2025 | thetablet.co.uk | Nick Spencer

Features: The Great OvercorrectionThe internationalisation of judgments has added a sense of distance between citizens and the law they are mandated to obey. The consequence has been a growing sense that the rule of law is somehow acting against “the people”. The “vibe” was due for a shift. But what we are seeing is an instinctive and hazardous lurch into the lane on the other side.