Profile: Giles Fraser
Giles Fraser: An unlikely holy man
I sit at the back of a church for the first time in 10 years and watch as a man preaches to his flock. Sunlight streams through the vast stained-glass windows behind him, framing his bald head with ethereal rays of gold. There is a dignity and solemnity here that I am unaccustomed to in my secular life. The preacher is Reverend Dr Giles Fraser, erudite speaker, intellectual powerhouse, BBC Radio 4 regular, prolific writer, dedicated social activist, and current priest of St. Anne's Church.
I am a guest for his sermon, and while no regular patron of theology I recognise that this speech, peppered with anecdotes and witticisms, is not of the common religious variety. Behind the veneer of erudition lies a mischievous twinkle in Fraser's eye—a glint of irreverence that sets him apart from the dour ranks of his ecclesiastical brethren.
This irreverence is still very much apparent when we sit across from one another in a pub garden an hour later, although perhaps some of the mystic has been lost in our setting. Fraser idly screws his third cigarette into the ashtray while he sips from a rather large glass of red. Clad in a wrinkled white t shirt and a pair of stained jeans there is remarkably little left of the clergyman I saw earlier. “They’ll almost definitely kill me you know…But they’re bloody nice” He declares. I assume he’s talking about cigarettes rather than sermons but considering his chequered history with the Church who knows.
For all his intellectual bravado, Fraser remains grounded in the realities of pastoral ministry—a vocation that often resembles herding cats more than saving souls. As a parish priest, he navigates the choppy waters of congregational politics with the finesse of a seasoned diplomat, mediating disputes over hymnals and tea urns with the patience of a saint (or at least a moderately tolerant cleric).
Yet when nudged to perhaps bemoan this banality, I encounter stern pushback. “The role of priest has never just been to answer the big questions. I am a father to both my children and my congregation, with both groups I have had to administer help in all manner of forms and have taken great pride and joy in doing so” When asked who administers help to him, he simply points upwards, then to his wine glass before blurting out “and my wife of course”.
When quizzed about his childhood he throws me an amicable smile before recounting with glee a reasonably traumatic childhood. “You see I was always very hard-headed – from birth as my mother tells it. C – section” He whispers this last past and offers me a comical wink.” I suffered under the illusion for most of my childhood that being correct made you right. Thankfully this was beaten out of me by my headmaster to be replaced by a more important truth – which is that right is a matter of perspective” He rolls his words about his mouth before spitting them out, as if to taste their worth.
“It wasn’t all bad though, at my secondary I met God.” I assume he is referencing attending a Christian private school rather than encountering his Divine Creator. “But no seriously, it really wasn’t all doom and gloom, there were some good times and some bad - like most children. Anyway, some of it must’ve made the right impression, I’m a fuckin priest after all” He accompanies this last claim with a dramatic spreading of his arms. He lurches from sincerity to irony in the space of a sentence, often leaving me tonally discombobulated. It feels like he’s making me work for his honesty – I hope I’m up to the challenge.
Fraser’ career in the church has been tumultuous to say the least. In 2009, after a relatively typical ecclesiastical career, he landed in his own words, his dream job. But he was canon theologian at St. Pauls Cathedral for only two years when the Occupy movement turned up next door to protest at the stock exchange. They were promptly moved on and landed on the doorstep of St Paul’s.
Fraser sympathised in some part with Occupy’s message “whatever your opinion of the 2008 crash I could as a human being and as a priest understand some of their frustrations”. The real issues came about when the camping occupy movement blocked access to churchgoers. The clergymen at St Pauls voted to forcibly remove protestors and Fraser felt he could not and would not be part of a decision that supported violence in the name of the church.” I resigned and while I regret leaving an institution as special as St. Pauls, there has not been a moment in the 13 years since that I believe I made the wrong decision”.
This resignation combined with an open invitation for the protestors to attend a sermon led the press to paint Fraser as a biblical figure of old shielding the masses from a tyrannical church. Unsurprisingly the bigwigs at the Anglican church were not found of this characterisation.” Yes, I was a rebel and a hero who stood up for what is right”. This statement is laced with such irony it approaches disgust” and then my life promptly went to shit”.
Up to this point when discussing the St Pauls fiasco Fraser has seemed almost bored. This event marked a pivotal juncture in his career, undoubtedly recounted countless times to the point where the telling may have lost its spark in repetition. However, this last statement is uttered with a depth of emotion that has not faded in the interim years.
“There were some hard years there. Personally, my marriage fell apart and I drank far too much. This combined with a level of media attention and scrutiny that I was entirely unused to, led to an unravelling of myself. A lot of things seemed to happen in conjunction at the time, most of them negative. It was something of a rebirth for me, and my work and my faith were the only thing that dragged me out the birthing canal.” He seems to come alive again with a wry smile” And look at me now, I have no problems at all” He compounds this point with a large quaff of his wine.
If there was any upside to the St Pauls incident, it was that it launched Fraser’s public career into the stratosphere. Always of a fierce intellect Fraser received his Doctorate with a thesis on the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Yes, the one who famously declared that God – at least in the old-fashioned sense – was dead. The irony does not escape him.” I am contrarian by nature” He decries to the rather small pub garden.
One of his first professional posts after St Pauls was a lecturer at the London School of Economics, challenging the entrenched dogmas of the ivory tower with the insatiable curiosity of an intellectual gadfly. His lectures have been rumoured to leave students simultaneously enlightened and bewildered, unsure whether to applaud or seek refuge in the safety of conventional wisdom. “They didn’t love me at LSE because I desired to step outside the syllabus in favour of some more worldly truths” He mutters. He seems to resent institutions that have dogmatic approaches to teaching. Which has no doubt led to such a tumultuous time within the Anglican church.
He channelled his towering academic smarts and perverse nature into a journalistic career. Already of some small success after writing for The Church Times and other smaller publications. The St Pauls coverage was the springboard that allowed him to preach to the masses. He has written for The Guardian regularly and now contributes monthly to the UnHerd publication which aims to ‘push back against the herd mentality with new and bold thinking’, a directive that Fraser aligns with sublimely.
Perhaps most famously Fraser contributes regularly to BBC Radio 4’s Thought of the Day and is a regular panellist on the Moral Maze.” If you haven’t noticed by now through my choices of career, I really rather like the sound of my own voice. Perhaps everything else has just been some grandiose pretence to get me on the biggest stage possible.” He says. He does himself a disservice. He is invited back on these shows time and time again because he has an ability to condense the profundities of morality into easily understood lessons. And he does this with a congeniality and humour that is rarely seen.
It is his political views that have perhaps drawn the most controversy in recent times. Famous in his early year for his progressive left leaning views, he founded the Inclusive Church which campaigns for LGBTQ+ inclusion within the church. He cites the foundation of all his political views as a virile response to Thatcherism. Yet in more recent years he was strongly supportive of Brexit, publicly voted conservative in 2019 and seems to rally against ‘wokeism’ whenever he can.
“Brexit has always been for me about repatriating sovereignty. I’ve been a parish priest on a council estate in the West Midlands and the powers of Brussels felt too distant. And as a person of Jewish descent, I abandoned the labour party in the Corbanite Era, although I hold no fondness for the conservatives either”.
He shuffles in his seat and seems to consider his next words more carefully.” On the ‘Woke’ thing I have more sympathy. I am not unaware of the image I portray as a middle-aged white man railing against ‘wokeism’. Yet I can’t help but feel as though the identity politics and tribalism that comes with it, as well as cancel culture, seems to deny our common shared humanity. And that as a man of faith and a human being deeply bothers me”.
It is in the trenches of social justice that Fraser's true mettle is tested—a realm where piety meets politics and platitudes crumble in the face of injustice. Whether marching alongside activists or penning fiery op-eds on issues of poverty and inequality, his commitment to the gospel of liberation seems unwavering.
In an era marked by uncertainty and cynicism, Giles Fraser stands as a paradox—a man of faith in a world that has lost its religion, a voice of reason in a cacophony of chaos. His journey, like that of so many ecclesiastical mavericks before him, is a testament to the enduring power of intellect, wit, and a healthy dose of scepticism in the face of orthodoxy.
Yet, for all his acclaim, Fraser remains a polarizing figure—a lightning rod for criticism from both the religious establishment and secular sceptics alike. His willingness to challenge conventional wisdom, coupled with his irreverent sense of humour, has earned him as many detractors as admirers, a fact that he wears as a badge of honour in the ongoing battle for hearts and minds.
In an age of moral relativism and political polarization, Fraser's voice serves as a clarion call for intellectual honesty and moral courage—a reminder that, amidst the cacophony of competing narratives, there exists a space for thoughtful reflection, moral discernment, and genuine human connection. As he continues to navigate the quagmires of modernity, one thing remains certain: where Giles Fraser treads, controversy follows, and enlightenment is never far behind.
I read the last paragraph to him as a possible end to the profile. He laughs in my face, “Jesus man I feel bile building. No no no. I’m none of that” He Leans forward as if to share a secret “What I am is a priest.”.
As the sermon ends a spell is broken and Fraser descends into his congregation. I watch from my pew closest to the exit as the man slaps backs, shake hands and pantomimes something to some of his parishioners. Gone is the sanctity of the sermon, and the man. In its place something more flawed, more honest, more jovial springs up. If indeed Nietzsche was right, and religion is dead – or at least dying. In Frasers delightful sincerity, I see perhaps a tonic.