Joshua Knapp

A story about demographic change, cultural and religious loss, and the need for home, set in a battered bit of the north of England.

@johnmilbank3 But which hell? The hell of the utterly damned or the hell of the almost damned, but not quite? And does the harrowing of hell open a new deeper more dreadful possibility - the hell of those who reject Christ’s saving work, including his harrowing of hell?

Today God evacuates hell/reveals that it is empty, by first undergoing its ultimate terrors. Had he not done that, redemption would not be complete.

"I don’t have a solution to this problem, except to suggest that there may be a dark and blurry area between proper committed believing and settled unbelief. There may be space around the crib for regretful and reverent agnostics to kneel in the rushes with the ass and the ox and the shepherds and the true believers. We may not actually pray there, in our ancient English churches, but at least we will be kneeling where prayer has been valid. At least we will be keeping faith as best we can with our ancestors, even if we are not capable of keeping faith with God." - Joshua Knapp, The Haxton Review

@Ben63 @DrMatthewSweet This is true. But it isn’t always true. I love my country because it’s my home. I want to conserve it. And part of loving it is moaning about stuff that seems obviously, dangerously wrong. I am afraid that there is no accounting for macho culture war twits on either side.

@havingaknapp @DrMatthewSweet Some do appear to hate everything

Why do culture war loudmouths and fruitcakes hate Britain so much? Don't like our King, don't like our universities or institutions, don't like paying tax, don't like millions of our fellow citizens. Maybe they're just not very patriotic.

The steps to truth were made by sculptured stone, Stained glass and vestments, holy water stoups, Incense and crossings of myself-the things That hearty middle stumpers most despise As, all the inessentials of the Faith. Sir John Betjeman

@oldspeak_books @VaubanBooks @Anglican_Gonzo I believe Suffolk is nice at that time of year.

So what's everyone doing on Friday 19th June? 🤔 @VaubanBooks @Anglican_Gonzo @havingaknapp

" What if there is such a thing as England and such a thing as Englishness? What if England is a real but complex reality to do with language, landscape, culture and people, and the impact that each has had on the others over the centuries? There would be religion in the mix of Englishness as well, of course, because culture always leans on cult. It would be Christianity mostly, both Protestant and Catholic, but it would be tinged with the paganism and the faerie that have never quite vanished from the darker places of English minds and English land. And there would also be settled modes of living together in the mix of Englishness, enshrined in common law and in what remains of custom and courtesy. This England, if it exists, would be a place that all of us, from the greatest to the least, could call our home. And the English, if they exist, would consent to be governed together here, because they would know that somehow they belong together, that they are tied together by shared responsibilities to the past and to the future, as well as by bonds of affectionate recognition which they do not share in quite the same way with a Frenchman or a Tibetan." - Joshua Knapp, The Haxton Review

Nicked it (a bit) for first part of my book The Haxton Review.

The most beautiful description of Bradford that I know. On his statue in the town centre.

TS Eliot said that genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. I hope this is true. I like The Wasteland but…

@bdavidson9040 @sil3nceish3r3 @oldspeak_books @VaubanBooks Thank you for buying it! Please let me know what you think!

@sil3nceish3r3 @oldspeak_books @havingaknapp @VaubanBooks Snap .

The Haxton Review by Joshua Knapp (@havingaknapp), published by @VaubanBooks (through the imprint The Maldon Press) and beautifully wrapped by @oldspeak_books (Oldspeak Bookshop). oldspeakbookshop.co.uk/products/The-H…

@thesalisbreview Thank you very much indeed (I am sorry that it has taken me so long to reply, I’m very new here! I will definitely be in touch.

@havingaknapp Great book, Joshua. Powerful message, much enjoyed. Thoroughly recommend. Oldspeak stock it and are also well worth supporting. Do get in touch with us at the magazine. All best

A story about demographic change, cultural and religious loss, and the need for home, set in a battered bit of the north of England.

@sil3nceish3r3 @VaubanBooks @oldspeak_books Thank you for buying it. Oldspeak do lovely wrapping!

I was away from the church for a few years. Missed lots of things, but a big one was the Christian calendar. The feasts and fasts, the liturgical seasons, the colours. Without religion, time was thin and flat, just a load of days, one after the other. Endless Sunday afternoons buying begonias and drinking tea in garden centres. Nature (and grace) abhor a vacuum and the new religion has its own emerging feast days, but they aren’t as good. My book, The Haxton Review, tries to trace the emergence of this replacement (?!) religion. Difficult to do without cliche.

First slum of Europe: a role It won't be hard to win, With a cast of crooks and tarts. And that will be England gone Philip Larkin

The National Gallery rehang of its religious art is excellent, in my opinion, and is free. There are also still wonderful parks, and you can always look up and admire the sky, hear the birds and adore the flowers. Life is very beautiful, even if hell is empty and all the demons are here.

@WaywardRabbler Thanks Brad will look it up. I would love to read (in English!) about the Carlists.

@havingaknapp Vincent Sheean's Not Peace but a Sword about 1938-1939 in Europe has interesting Spanish Civil War content, though he was there as a journalist not a participant (total Republican sympathizer though)

Anti-fascism now