Alastair Campbell vs The Archbishop of Canterbury: Alastair Does God | GQ Politics | British GQ

will you go to heaven yes will i go to heaven that's up to you [Music] so archbishop thank you for having me it's a pleasure uh as you may have seen a terrifying pleasure but there we are i don't do god never i'd never heard that before tell me why i should i'll give you about a million reasons but i'd start by saying look at don't do the theoretical stuff about whether god exists look at the person of jesus christ that's what changed me i didn't do god i looked at the person jesus christ i look at the evidence for the resurrection i look at what he said i looked at the impact of what he did i looked at the impact of his followers particularly in the first two or three hundred years and i thought i couldn't get away with it plus there's a certain witness of seeing people's lives particularly in some of the poorest parts of the world um generosity hospitality i can be aspisable i can be generous yeah i can absolutely i can try to strike we weren't saying about whether being a christian makes you good you were asking me about why you should do god but i would say the evidence if i did god what would that mean if you do god it means you become um in the category we're talking about at the moment you do god in any kind of way uh with more or less validity i mean you can't become a jedi for all i know but in christian terms it means it means letting opening your life to the presence of christ by his spirit and why and there's a mystical element to that right maybe it's the mystical element i find very difficult yeah we all do um but what what's what sets your god apart from all the other gods that other people believe in are they are you right and they're wrong what sets being a christian apart is the reality of jesus christ it's god becoming human living a human life being fully human and fully god dying completely rising from the dead being present with us now and you believe that absolutely yes that mary existed and mary was a virgin yes and jesus was the son of god god yes but i are you surprised that you believe it yeah i'm surprised yeah i am because i i can't believe it i'm not surprised you believe it because you know right that's what i was saying yeah quite i mean i'd be very very horrified if you didn't believe we're not in an episode of yes prime minister no no we're not no but but i find it very hard i find it very hard quite regularly and i and you'll find if you look at the psalms look at psalm 44 if you want a cross okay where someone is really struggling to deal with god look at psalm 49 where they're saying look god the rich seem to do very well and you don't seem to be doing very well by me so why should i say that though and that is always that is the most profound issue which anyone faces with any kind of religious faith is where's god right in the bad places my sister by the way who you'll be pleased to know does do god and she sent me a message yesterday on my birthday and thank you for my card she said uh give him my love that's very nice tell him i read romans 8 this morning get him to explain what it means because it will be the best birthday present you've ever had you want a sermon on romans 8. what just in 30 seconds just tweet tweet a tweet romans 8 begins with paul coming to a conclusion after one to seven that because of what jesus did we don't have to fear death we don't have to fear sin we can trust god and in god we find complete freedom right that's the essential part and he goes on remember he was writing in the first century he had an unbelievably tough life so this isn't someone who's sitting in an ivory tower yeah in comfort and the great verse which is for me in romans 8 is romans 8 28 which is there is in all sorry in all things god works for the good of those who love him who walk according to his purposes and i mean he doesn't work for those who don't no it doesn't say that that's other bits of the bible okay so god does me even if i don't do god uh that's very well put that is it does he yes of course he does and how does he do me because he knows you he loves you he wants you to know i mean the point about being a christian is not a witness to a bunch of rules about things we mustn't want to do it's when it's a witness to the love of jesus christ who reaches out and wants us to know his love and to follow him with the assurance of his love but how do i reconcile the fact that that salman abadi who's just killed all those kids in manchester has had his god and believed in that god as intensely as you and my sister believe in your god you will have met a bunch of people who believed in a bunch of bizarre things and a bunch of people who believed in a bunch of good things you told me earlier you've met nelson mandela like you i'd love to have met him um do you say that because there were people in south africa who believed in apartheid then therefore someone who believed in the opposite of apartheid is wrong because strong beliefs you can't believe you know if one person believes one thing that means all belief is wrong it's just no i'm not saying that at all i just say someone obeyed he's wrong he's deeply deeply wrong he's wrong he's wrong and he's deeply evil what about somebody he's wrong and he's evil but what about somebody who believes in the god that he believed in um and actually is a is a good person doesn't do evil things why is their god different to your god because they believe different things about him but why are they wrong you're right because as a christian i believe that god is revealed in jesus christ in human form and that's definitive revelation they believe something different we'll find out after we're dead you believe that as well yeah so will you go to heaven yes will i go to heaven that's up to you so i won't go to heaven it's not about whether you're good or bad it's about whether i believe a lot it's about whether when you face god you say you've got to accept me because i've always done the right thing and i'm a good kind of person and i never swore and i never got crossed that is true exactly um or whether you say look in the words of the old hymn nothing in my hands i bring simply to your cross i clean in other words you don't depend on yourself you you throw yourself on the mercy of god the person who stands autonomously who says i'm okay because i'm okay and i don't need anything else is killing themselves first rule the 12 steps by the way is kidding themselves the person who when they face god throws themselves on the mercy of god puts themselves in the hands of absolute love but if i'd been born in yemen and raised by a god-fearing muslim muslim family yeah and [Music] how and that's my life and that's my background that's my culture you're likely to be a god-fearing muslim right but going back to the book your god i'm not going to be going back to the epistle to the romans it's not like getting into a club where you have to fill out the forms right going back to the epistles did you have a would i do i have to have a kind of revelation somewhere there's an element of revelation in it but how does it how does it happen how's it gonna happen by the holy spirit god warning uh to use the phrase that wesley used warming your heart by you being willing to take the divine what has been described as the divine by pascal as the divine wager on the existence of god right do you think we're helped by i mean i've i sort of feel conflicted in that my parents were they weren't certainly weren't evangelical but they sort of went to church every sunday and they told us you can't do tribes no i know but um i'd i just find the the kind of and i have intellectual difficulty in accepting any of it and so do most of us so you still have that oh i can argue both ways if i need to but when i come back when i'm struggling and there are moments when i really struggle go back a couple years south sudan standing by the open grave a mass grave with in a place called boar with the bodies of the clergy at my feet to consecrate the grave before they were buried in it with 3 000 unburied bodies in the town of course i asked questions who would you wouldn't be human if you didn't ask questions but i come back to the person of jesus christ it is all about jesus christ the moment you get away from jesus christ you lose the plot in christian towns you have to believe that story you have to come to christ as god that's the deal well what about so what about the young people and children who've lost their life in manchester let's say that so they've been taken away prematurely what what happened if they hadn't quite reached that moment are they going to happen first of all who goes to heaven who goes to hell isn't my is above my pay grade clearly it's god's problem secondly the god who give gave his son to die for us on the cross is not going to reject people who turn to him at any point and look to his mercy someone who comes to the someone who comes to a god of infinite love is not coming to someone who's going to go through a rule book i mean that's just just think of yourself as a parent you don't when your kids come and want to talk to you you don't say well have you been good enough today do you you you you might be a bit teed off with them about something but you you welcome them you hug them you talk to them you listen to them you might say i didn't really like that or that was that really clever thing to do um but that's because you love them not because you've set a series of rules and they've met the standard right but fiona and i are doing our three children a disservice having as it were raise them as atheists are we doing a bad thing i would say you're doing something i don't think is the best way of doing it but you would tell me i was the opposite you know bringing up our kids i'm a pro-faith atheist you're a pro-faith yes i like faith and i like people of faith but i can't do it myself well no doubt your sister as a as a christian prays for you and children she doesn't she tells me well that's great and is that helping me yeah is that part of god doing me yeah okay all right um do you is this going to get easier [Laughter] what did you want what's your all right what's your favorite color i'm not going to answer do you um do you feel part of the establishment do you feel no i really don't but i probably am i mean this feels quite established it feels very establishment the thing to remember of course we keep caroline and i remind each other pretty regularly that the day i retire you know all this guys where would he go i don't know i'm gonna have where's rhone gone uh he's master of modern college of course yeah and do you feel do you feel at all resentful that we instinctively called him rowan but you seem to be well be in headlines no rowan is wonderful yeah i'm slightly envious but rowan is wonderful and what's um how do you differ do you think oh golly i get the feeling you enjoyed the job more than he maybe did well that may be true you'd have to ask him i think that probably is true do you like the job on some days do you enjoy the do you enjoy the establishment part of it the sort of the status the figure no that doesn't press my buttons what what i enjoy is the opportunity to deal with people in them and to deal with everyone at any kind of background and to have a real opening to talk to people can i ask you a really strange question i'm sure um i don't know why i thought of this but do you ever do you lose sleep at all about thinking that you might have to preside over the queen's funeral do you say i don't lose sleep and i do hope that i don't have to um i think but do you think about the enormity of that yeah oh who wouldn't of course i think about the enormity of it but you think about actually if you're sensible i mean it's enormous because it'll be very you know whoever does it and god willing it'll be someone after me it it's an it's an enormously public occasion but i was a parish priest for 10 years every funeral you think about the enormity of it and when you go into church or to the krem if they haven't gone into church or to the graveside and you're looking at the coffin and you're looking at the mourners you are really conscious of the weight but the queen is very very different to all of us and it is going to be one of the most extraordinary events of our lifetime it and and if you if you are still here you're you're going to be a very big part of that it will be the queen isn't i i really don't want to get in the details of that because it's not something you talk about but the queen is the most extraordinary person i think one of the most well certainly i would put you know one of the most extraordinary first people i've ever met um in every possible way and it will be uh when it eventually happens it does to all of us the most extraordinary historic moment and just how powerful do you feel do you feel powerful at all no i think one of the biggest mistakes people make in this job is they come in thinking there's a bunch of leavers they can fall and things will happen you have no leaves at all i haven't discovered any yet and i haven't really looked very hard because i know they're not there and how do you it's influence right and it's politics it's it's you're you're a political figure not just because of being no not party political but you're a political figure you've got to act politically in the sense of working with people forming enabling views to be formed but not always dictating listening carefully adjusting what you're doing i mean all the stuff you did yeah so i'm a bit like an archbishop is that what you're saying you'd make a very brilliant archbishop i think that was apart from the language totally totally sarcastic and the atheist and just on the pope yes um if he is like the the real madrid of religious leadership yeah or the barcelona where does the globally where does the archbishop of canterbury fit sunderland sunderland sunderland just being relegated i know that so quite low down then yeah right do you feel the pope this pope in particular is sort of extraordinary yeah i have never met another pope right i he he he started two days before i did um and i've met him five or six times and what's your impression mesmerizing um would you put him up with over the queen uh why are we going back to the queen again you're trying to get me interested because you said she was the most you want to know he's the most extraordinary no i don't care about you you want a headline in the days that's what you're saying the last thing i want is a headline today i don't want anything i believe that do you hate the daily mail as much as i do i'm not going to answer that question um yes i'm not going to answer the question there are plenty of questions i don't answer it doesn't mean yes or no you can make up your own mind the pope is yes he's similar it's that extraordinary presence authority insight experience which don't isn't just the position no it's it's deeply within him yeah he is a man of um huge humor great gentleness intense discipline huge intellect do you share his views on climate change yes and were you pleased that he gave his oh yeah the gift that he gave to president trump um yeah i think he's a very good present yeah because i'm very good president or very good president very good present present not a good president then i'm not commenting on whether he's a good president or not yeah yeah i'm just certainly not going to comment okay is he is do you feel american evangelicals say that trump is the best thing to have happened to uh the church name five evangelicals american evangelicals who said this oh i don't know right so why'd you ask me because i read it somewhere in my in my all right i'll ask you is trump good for the for the church is trump do you think that do you think i'm not going to answer that question um because i don't know the answer uh if i have an answer and i'm not going to answer it let's say put it that way i'm simply not going to answer it and if i said do you think obama was good for the world would you have answered that i think with president i mean actually having heard him yesterday i give the answer he gave obama yeah which is we won't know for many years if he's been a good president yeah and the outcome of individual i think we can exaggerate the impact of particular leaders unless they press the button in which case we can't exaggerate it but on the assumption they don't do that we have good prime ministers we have less good prime ministers the world goes on i mean history is measured in centuries not in five eight year periods but we are in an extraordinary period aren't we everyone thinks they're in an extraordinary period the 30s was pretty extraordinary um 89 was probably the most extraordinary year of my lifetime the fall of communism the fall of the war um 29 uh 97 39-45 97 showed this extraordinary uh what can be done by genius in communications is that we think it was that was the lasting thing i think that i think it was the arrival of someone whose name is this appears in print so your toad won't be conveyed other than all right i'm being finally turned up right i'm not i'm i'm but no but you know we always think it's extraordinary times do you mean 39 to 45 was not an extraordinary course it was extraordinary but i wasn't alive then so in our lifetimes i agree with you about the fall of the war but i do think that was for me that's the most significant in my lifetime extraordinary and i i look at today trump no i agree with you i look at climate change and i i think we're facing bigger long-term dangers that are existential dangers either for the human race or for this country and we're facing them with more short-term policies and we're facing them with i'm not sure they're short-term politicians i think they're politicians driven i'm not talking about trump i'm i think they're politicians driven by short-term pressure from the change in information technology which gives you information without relationship and gives you no time to respond exactly what al gore said last week oh i didn't know that yeah um and what about the wall the pope was very clear that the wall the concept of the war was was not a christian act i said that uh on wednesday in in front of reichstag so i can scarcely um there's a rather bad resonance no it doesn't not nowadays it doesn't um we were standing next to where the berlin wall had been yeah and i said we built bridges not walls yeah so i thought i was being original and i discovered i wasn't it's very annoying no it's quite it's quite quite common right it's quite cliche though yeah it's it's an old sound bite and if i just presumably because you're part of the establishment though if this state visit goes ahead you'll be part of that and you'll have to you'll have to probably exchange a few words with with president donald trump yeah what would you say don't know roughly i haven't worked it out yet if he was here now what would you say to him i'd ask him how he was right i try and deal with people as human beings once the small talk was done i suspect he would finish the interview rather before the small talk was done listen you come on when you were in in in number 10 you met some wonderful people and i suspect you met some really bad people yeah my job involves meeting wonderful people and less wonderful people and really bad people i'm not going to tell you what i'm thinking of okay but i've met people who've been involved in mass murder because that's part of the job the pope president trump that's part of what he does when he was challenged about it every human being is of infinite value and profound dignity and we treat people that way and we may disagree with them we may want to say things about them but you treat people with the dignity of being a human being and you treat the president of the united states with the respect due to the office even if you don't agree with the person well but it's very hard when he when he treats the office in the way that he treats it but the officer yesterday the office is the office yeah and that that's that's what that's you're meeting the people of the united states for whom i respect and have a great affection right okay but if you put together their politics here climate change migration global terrorism it does it it does feel quite a scary world what's the role of the church in that context in that context the role of the church well the anglicans i mean i've i've visited every anglican province there are 39 provinces around the world and i've been in every one of them the most characteristic thing that the anglicans are doing around the world and it applies also to the roman catholics and many other churches is reconciliation peace building development um my wife goes to provinces and meets the bishop's wives and the characteristics she finds is people working unbelievably hard under immense pressure often under persecution or in war to save life to build bridges to bring people together that's what the church is doing and to do it as a witness to the love of jesus christ okay and that's what we do yeah and we do it actually in many places really rather well okay um let's just make it really easy now is gay sex sinful do you know we've done religion we've done politics why am i surprised that you've brought in sex because i feel sorry for tim farren i feel sorry for who keeps being asked this question he's the only one who does i'm asking you you know very well that that's a question that i can't give a straight answer to oh no sorry it's a badly crazy way of answering the question that was pretty bad i should have thought that one through um because i don't do blanket contamination of people um and when i it i haven't got a good answer to the question that's uh you know i'll be really honest i haven't got a good answer the question i know i haven't got a good answer to the question and that comes from two things inherently within myself the things that seem to me to be absolutely central are around faithfulness stability of relationship loving relationships but that could be a man and a man and a woman a woman i know it could be i'm also aware and deeply held by the fact that ever since long before christianity within the jewish tradition that marriage is understood invariably as between man and woman or in various times a man and several women as it happens in the old testament um and i know that the church around the world is deeply divided on this in some places including the anglicans and many other churches not just us and that we are um and the vast majority of the church is deeply against uh gay sex so this is where you are having to be a politician yes i'm having to struggle to be faithful to the tradition faithful to scripture to understand what the call and will of god is in the 21st century and to respond appropriately with love for all people and not condemning them whether i agree with them or not and that covers both sides of the argument and it's and i haven't got a good answer and we're not doing it and i'm i won't say we i'm not doing that bit of work as well as i would like to but is that because the politics of it so difficult if you've got these ugandan bishops and you've got the liberals who believe something very different you have to try and reconcile them yeah but it's irreconcilable there are some disputes that are irreconcilable i mean you know come on let's so where does that go i don't know at the moment what i know is that we have to be faithful to the deposit of faith as it's called the the tradition we've inherited to the scripture we have to be holy above all we have to be people who look like god wants us to look like that's what jesus set the church in motion to do is to represent him in the world to be when they look at the church they should see jesus and really they don't people don't very often particularly when we are either totally corrupted or totally hostile to people or whatever it had judgmental unpleasant nasty so is so is is homophobic hatred sinful yes because you're hating individuals it is not simple to say i don't think it's simple to say that you disagree with gay sex um but uh to express that by way of hatred of people is absolutely wrong in the same way is it you know misogyny or racism is that not morally a cop-out yeah i'm copying out because i haven't i'm struggling with the issue have you moved on the issue personally yourself at all are you just politic you're having to deal with the politics of this oh yeah i probably i think i've i've become the generosity i've received from gay friends in the midst of not handling this issue very well and from people who are very traditionalist about these views from friends who are very traditional about this views these views has led to me being much less certain than i would have been say 10 or 15 years ago and before you had god before you were head hunted by god to use a phrase you once used uh did i ever that was a pretty bad phrase i thought it was quite a good phrase all right carry on but when you didn't have god in the way that you do now did you have views on this then that have changed no okay okay um i might you know it's a willie liberal so would there and what about civil partnerships do you do would you support our campaign i do support civil partnerships and because we have no rights at all as atheistic civil partners compared to gay couples or married couples did you know that yeah of course i did yeah so you support the campaign i didn't know there was a campaign it's a big campaign and and we're trying to i thought you'd die to death a couple of years ago no no the same sex marriage act okay holy trinity brompton holy trinity brompton yeah do you still go there no i tend to be busy on a sunday i thought you might be but but i have very good friends there okay and they've been really really good friends through this time farage poster the farage poster sorry to jump back to immigration but the yeah where did that figure on your how did you react to that when you saw it which foundation the farage poster oh i said it at the time that one you mean the one about immigration yeah yeah before the election before the referendum before the referendum um i said at the time i thought it was completely wrong it's just stirring up fear against people and with the effect of did it help him win i don't know you'd know that better than i would i don't really know to be honest uh your childhood in a word pretty mixed up that's three words yeah two if you put a hyphen with the mixed in the up all right okay uh it is it is an extraordinary story is it yeah it was life but it was an extraordinary story and it's got more extraordinary with you it's certainly gotten very extraordinary in the last year yes it has i can't deny that yes that was a bit of a spread who do you think i mean i think it's worth the film so who would play you in the movie do you think who do you fancy playing you in the movie of your life uh i don't think anyone would ever be i think there's a film in that story do you really well you you grow up with two alcoholic parents yep um one of them you think you know his name but you're wrong you think you know his age but you're wrong you think you know his faith but you're wrong yes uh and you but you think he's his father you're he's your father and you're wrong about that as well yeah yeah i didn't do that it turns out actually your real father was winston churchill's private secretary deputy private deputy private secretary and your mother also worked for winston churchill for six years i think that is a pretty extraordinary story i do think it's extraordinary so how has it made you feel um at different times different things i mean you when you're a child growing up with alcoholic parents and remember my father died yeah i'm going to call him my father yeah because that's how i think of him and you still think of that yeah i do yeah um we've tried all kinds of phrases like biological fathers social fact it's just yeah it doesn't work done you know there were moments they're really really really bad moments um and i remember some of those my father died my mother's in recovery for 40 she hasn't had a drink in 40 48 where am i must be almost 50 years now 50 49 50 years um and i'm a hugely proud of her yeah and she handled that business last year yeah superbly yeah i mean you know just brilliant um i think she's wonderful um it is unbelievably chaotic frightening disturbing living with alcoholics it's terrifying yeah but as a child you don't know anything else you think this is life yeah and you don't you sometimes go and stay with friends and you think it's a better kind of life and other times and at the same time you're conflicted because you love them and you just wish they weren't like that yeah has it made you feel everything i mean just immensely responsible sometimes terrified um hopeful you you i daydreamed a lot i escaped by daydreaming you created your own reality an alternative reality in which life was different and how do you think it's made you as a parent because you've had your own big struggles as a parent yeah we have we have um i i i've asked myself that i it's i suspect it's made me angry with myself when i don't live up to what i'd like to be as a parent does this job make that difficult funnily enough no because the kids are so supportive right and honest and amazing are they all christians uh yes they are they are um not all not right through their lives some of them come to it later some earlier and we've well that sounds defensive but we tried not to sort of shut you down that's right yeah and said you know you've got to make up your own mind your fate it can't be our faith that you live off you've got to live off your own yeah yeah um but in your father's psychological and your both apparent psychological issues and then you had your own breakdown and catherine who's been extraordinary when did i have a breakdown i thought you had a brain in your 20s no oh i thought you did not that i'm aware of today oh no i don't think i did okay i read that oh well it's amazing what you read in the paper okay right well that's good that's another piece we did lose a child i know you lost a child after which you found god no it was long before that oh you found god before oh yeah okay particularly seven eight nine years before that what are you gonna do that for because you just asked a really surprising question okay um but but sir okay but your own father's issues and your daughter who's been incredibly open about her yeah um but do you do you get depression do you get depressed it's funny you ask do you feel you do you feel you have any kind of psychology yeah i think i if you'd asked me a year ago i'd have said no and if you'd asked me 10 years ago i said absolutely not yeah what was that phrase that church will use black dog yeah there's an element of that and i think i'm as i'm getting older i'm realizing that it does come from time to time i moments of real i don't you would know this those moments when objectively everything's fine but you just think ever you just think you are beyond description hopeless do you know that and am i making anything totally yeah and is that related to that feeling you said you had yesterday with merkel and obama a feeling no no so it's a difference that's just that's just a and we're saying i say no rather confidently i think it's it may be relationship because you said hopeless you feel hopeless yeah there's two meanings to hopeless god he's hopeless can't do the job and feeling devoid of hope uh both right so they could be related they could be related yeah see i told you you're better at this than i am right well i've had all this hopeless stuff yeah well so that's because my sister said she said i need god if i had god this wouldn't happen no but read psalm 88 sorry i've given you two sums can you remember numbers 44 47 48. 44 under 88 will do fine okay 44 000. that's easy to remember yeah right what about 176 there's only 150 okay it's thankfully the but 44 88 if you read psalm 88 i bet you you know i suggest you will find in there someone who is going through chronic depression okay genuine chronic depression all the psalms have a pattern some of them very happy there's psalms of real anger and protest fury against enemies and every human emotions in the psalms it's amazing yeah some eight but they almost all end by saying well god we're putting ourselves in your hands it'll be all right psalm 88 doesn't have a shred in it right but he's still talking to god okay and when you get and then when i get like that i may feel hope without hope i may feel all kinds of things but i still talk to god right but catherine who's also taught god yeah um but has also presumably has medication therapy you've never done that i haven't no i have had some stuff around post-traumatic stuff that happened when i was working in conflict science right um but you've never you've never felt the need to be to see somebody for your depression for your black dog depression call it what you will i've never seen anyone but you might have felt the need yeah and do you not see somebody because you feel you've got god no absolutely nothing do with it i don't at the moment because it seems to pass right okay and you know but you know more about this than i do i think i mean it it's it's strange it's strange because it's the unreality of it and it was fascinating watching catherine talk with my wife on heads together you did something yeah with your wife yeah or your partner yeah yeah and and because caroline's one of the most balanced stable extraordinary people well she's the most extraordinary person i've ever met and yet she engages really well with where catherine's at right so she so your wife isn't a depressive no absolutely not and yet she somehow has an empathy and a feeling for what yeah it's just amazing and is catherine good strong at the moment yeah she is she's doing really well that um she's doing really really well just finishing a book and um it's because she's very self-aware she's got the most amazing husband and a little boy when did you guys cry um tuesday or wednesday i can't remember wednesday because manchester united i was looking at photographs okay

Channel: British GQ

Views: 181,974

Rating: 4.75632 out of 5

Keywords: GQ, fashion, style, celebrity, luxury, behind the scenes, men’s lifestyle, menswear, British GQ, british magazine, men’s style, style guide, men’s fashion, gq uk, British style, British GQ style, Alastair campbell, alastair campbell gq, alastair campbell religion, alastair campbell on god, the archbishop of canterbury, the archbishop of canterbury god, Justin Welby, religion, god religion, jesus christ, politics vs religion, christian debate, politics religion debate, politics

Id: 9Ps7AMmiSpc

Length: 40min 21sec (2421 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 26 2017