Volume 128

Issue 1: January/February 2013

Cover story: Mormonism plus South Park equals box office gold. Natalie Haynes previews the sell-out West End musical The Book of Mormon; Sarah Ditum warns against detox New Year fitness hype; Paul Sims meets Sanal Edamaruku, the Indian rationalist fighting blasphemy charges for exposing a miracle; the digital switchover has ushered in a new era for UK televangelism, reports James Gray; Caspar Melville talks to Francis Spufford about his defence of Christianity; Richard Smyth on the absorbing conflicts between faith and bathroom hygiene; Jason Wakefield's handy guide to the arguments against gay marriage, and why they're all wrong; Jonathan Miller and Laurie Taylor talk sea urchins, causality and the vacuity of sunsets; what have black holes ever done for us? asks Marcus Chown; Q&A with soul legend Labi Siffre. PLUS: Jonathan Rée on the greatest living writer of English prose; Andrew Mueller enjoys Mary Whitehouse's failure; Francis Beckett gets Hacked Off; Craig Purshouse is unconvinced by the case against fairness; Warren Ellis enjoys a ripping rewrite of a biblical myth; Richard Wilson on Congo's slide into civil war; Michael Bywater on Our Church; Salil Tripathi on India's fundamentalists; Laurie Taylor is beyond the fringe; Marus Chown sees a bad moon rising.

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