Third Way Magazine
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Third Way Magazine is a UK current-affairs magazine written from a Christian perspective. It is distinctively biblical, fairly highbrow and culturally aware. It can call on the best Christian thinkers and writers (its columnists include high-profile journalists, clegy and BBC comedy writers) to comment on news issues, much as the New Statesman or Spectator calls on those from left or right. Third Way magazine is not affiliated with either the minor British political party Third Way, or with the centrist "Third Way" policies of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.
The magazine was launched in January 1977 by a wing of the Church that had begun to rediscover the imperative of "social responsibility" which, with some notable exceptions, it had long neglected. Its title referred to a comment by the theologian Os Guinness in a book entitled The Dust of Death: "How often in the contemporary discussion a sensitive modern man knows that he cannot accept either of the polarised alternatives offered to him. In Christianity, however, there can be a Third Way, a true middle ground which has a basis, is never compromise and is far from silent."
Third Way reviews films, music, books and television. It also carries features on social or cultural issues (such as the environment, sexual identity or economics) and interviews high-profile people from those fields. In recent years, for example, it has talked to Tony Blair, Thom Yorke, Rowan Williams, Gerry Adams, Max Clifford, Ian Hislop, John Peel, Maya Angelou, Mark Thompson, Anita Roddick, Jonathon Porritt, Richard Dawkins and many more. Interviews are published Q&A with no editorialising. Other sections include an "Icon of the month" (deconstructing items from the holocaust to McDonald's to Bob Dylan to the World Cup), a regular Bible commentary and an events page.
The magazine has 10,000 readers worldwide. Its current editor is Simon Jones and other staff include Steve Tomkins, Nick Thorpe and Huw Spanner. In terms of Christian alignment it sits comfortably alongside the Greenbelt festival or the Ship of Fools website.
Recently, Third Way was seen in an episode of the BBC TV series Spooks.
