The Sacred

Theos Think Tank

A podcast about our Sacred values and how we can talk to people who are different from ourselves.

Each episode features a conversation with someone who has a public voice, from academics to journalists, playwrights and politicians. We ask them where they have come from, what they are trying to do and what might help heal our very divided public conversations.

The Sacred is hosted by Elizabeth Oldfield and produced in partnership with Comment Magazine, and with support from The Jerusalem Trust and Open Society Foundation

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245 episodes
Updated Wednesday

Episodes245

Newest first

Jul 9, 2019 · 38 min
#43 Pádraig Ó Tuama
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian and peace maker. Until recently he was the leader of the Corrymeela community, which is Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organisation. They describe themselves as 'people who seek to engage with the differences of our world... people who disagree with each other on matters of religion, politics and economics and people who wish to name our own complicity in the fractures that damage our societies.' In this episode he spoke about his sacred values of language and encounter, why poetry can help us build our understanding, what keeps him coming back to the story of faith, and how much he loves it when people do unexpected things in situations of conflict.
Jun 25, 2019 · 44 min
#42 Mim Skinner
Mim Skinner is the author of ‘Jailbirds’ which contains stories of her time teaching art in a women’s prison. She currently runs the women’s project for the charity Handcrafted, supporting women to connect to community, housing and recovery through creativity. She is also co-founder of Refuse which works to intercept food which would otherwise go to landfill and do some good with it. In this episode, Mim talks about what she learned from working with female prisoners, the positive influence of living in the North East having grown up in the home counties, and why feminism sometimes struggles to accommodate the most vulnerable women.
Jun 11, 2019 · 49 min
#41 Hussein Kesvani
Hussein Kesvani is a journalist, editor and producer based in London. He is the Europe editor of MEL Magazine, has written for BuzzFeed, Vice, The Guardian, the New Statesman and The Spectator, and is the author of 'Follow Me, Akhi: The Online World of British Muslims,' available from Hurst Publishers. That book is now available for purchase here: https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/follow-me-akhi/ In this episode, he discusses his childhood as one of the only Muslim children in his school in Kent, his parents' hidden histories and their expulsion from Uganda in the 1970s, his trajectory from Islam to atheism and back again, and why his online presence is a bit surreal.
May 14, 2019 · 39 min
#39 Sanderson Jones
Sanderson Jones is a comedian, a social entrepreneur and the co-founder of Sunday Assembly, a worldwide movement of secular congregations. In this episode, he talks about his early experiences of religion, the impact of losing his mum as a child, his sacred value of life and why he feels we all need more meaning and belonging.
Apr 30, 2019 · 34 min
#38 Ash Sarkar
Ash Sarkar is a writer, broadcaster, journalist and lecturer. She is a Senior Editor at Novara Media, an independent left-wing media organisation, and regularly appears as a pundit on television and radio. In this episode she discusses her sacred value of human life, being a ‘red diaper baby’, rediscovering Islam and her worries that adversarial debates are shaping us in unhealthy ways.
Apr 16, 2019 · 41 min
#37 Justin Welby
Justin Welby has been the Archbishop of Canterbury since 2013. Prior to this, he served as Bishop of Durham and Dean of Liverpool Cathedral. He spent the first 15 years of his ordained life in Coventry diocese. He was ordained in 1992 after an 11-year career in the oil industry. In this podcast, he talks about the difficulties of leading the global Anglican Communion, how he was dragged reluctantly into ordained ministry and his need to occasionally switch off and watch an Avengers film.
Apr 9, 2019 · 42 min
#36 Matthew Taylor
Matthew Taylor is the Chief Executive of the RSA, author of the 2016 Taylor Report review of modern employment commissioned by Theresa May, and panellist on the BBC Radio 4 programme The Moral Maze. He was formally head of the Number 10 Policy Unit under Tony Blair, Director of IPPR, Assistant General Secretary of the Labour Party and a county councillor. This episode covers his sacred values of human rights, his childhood loneliness, why he’s really uncomfortable with conflict and why as an atheist he’s very happy for his daughter to be raised in church.
Mar 27, 2019 · 42 min
#35 Sally Hitchiner
Rev Sally Hitchener is an Anglican priest and Associate Vicar of St-Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square. She was previously co-ordinating Anglican Chaplain and inter-faith advisor at Brunel University, and is the founder of Diverse Church, a charity which supports LGBT+ Christians. In this episode she discusses her sacred value of gift, her experiences as a gay female priest, and why sometimes being an outsider can be a blessing.
Mar 13, 2019 · 40 min
#34 David Allen Green
David Allen Green is a lawyer and legal commentator. He is a contributing editor at the Financial Times and a former legal correspondent for the New Statesman. He led the defence at the Twitter Joke Trial in 2012 and is now known for his commentary on the legal complexities surrounding Brexit. This interview explores why he became a lawyer instead of a historian, the responsibility that comes with a massive Twitter following and how he tries not to upset religious friends.
Feb 27, 2019 · 44 min
#33 Christina Patterson
Christina Patterson is a writer and broadcaster. A former chief executive of the Poetry Society and columnist for The Independent, she now writes for The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Daily Mail about culture, society, politics and books. She is a regular commentator on radio and TV news programmes and a regular guest on Sky News. She is the author of The Art of Not Falling Apart which you can buy here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Not-Falling-Apart/dp/1786492768/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=U This episode covers her childhood informed by an ethic of public service, gaining and losing a fundamentalist faith, writing personally as a columnist and the sacramental echoes in wine and kettle chips.
Feb 13, 2019 · 42 min
#32 James Cary
James Cary is a comedy writer. He has written sitcoms for BBC TV and radio, including Miranda, Bluestone 42, Think the Unthinkable and Hut 33. He is the author of Writing That Sitcom, Death by Civilisation and most recently The Sacred Art of Joking. He is also a member of General Synod. We spoke about how he doesn't feel fully at home in either his church tribe or his comedy tribe, why he doesn't mind that his socially conservative views offend some people, and the importance of defending the freedom to makes jokes — because they make us fully human.
Jan 30, 2019 · 44 min
#31 Shadi Hamid
Shadi Hamid is a political scientist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in their Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World in the Center for Middle East Policy. Hes also a contributing editor for The Atlantic. He's the author most recently of Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World (https://www.amazon.com/Islamic-Exceptionalism-Struggle-Islam-Reshaping/dp/1250135133/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1447698723&sr=1-1), and the co-editor of Rethinking Political Islam (https://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Political-Islam-Shadi-Hamid/dp/0190649208/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=). This episode explores his sacred value of respecting democratic outcomes, why representational intersectional politics is making being a public Muslim a bit more complex, his love for Christian political theologian Abraham Kuyper, and his contrarian tendencies.
Jan 16, 2019 · 35 min
#30 Ariane Sherine
Ariane Sherine is a comedy writer, journalist and in 2009 was creator of the Atheist Bus Campaign. She was written comedy for the BBC, Channel 4 and beyond, journalism for The Spectator, The Guardian, Telegraph and Sunday Times, and is the author of The Atheists Guide to Christmas and Talk Yourself Better: a Confused Person’s guide to Therapy, Self-help and Counselling. We spoke about a traumatic abortion experience, her struggles with mental health, what has changed since the bus campaign 10 years ago and why she now doesn't mind that her daughter calls herself a Christian. This episode contains themes some listeners may find upsetting. Please listen with care.
Jan 2, 2019 · 46 min
#29 Nick Payne
Nick Payne is an award winning playwright and screenwriter. His plays 'Constellations', and 'If There is I Haven’t Found it Yet' have been performed in London and New York and his series 'Wanderlust' was recently screened on BBC 1 and Netflix. Nick adapted Julian Barnes's The Sense Of An Ending for BBC Films which was released in 2017 with Jim Broadbent.Jake Gyllenhaal will star in Nick's play A Life which will run at The Public Theater on Broadway from January to March 2019. In this episode he discusses why publically funded arts are sacred to him, the difficulty of writing about religious belief as an agnostic, and why he thinks the theatre is vital for creating space to reflect on what kind of society we want to be.
Dec 26, 2018 · 1 min
Boxing Day Announcement
There is no full episode of The Sacred as we are taking a break over Christmas. Instead, here's a short message from Elizabeth about dealing with difference in our very own homes and some announcements about next year's exciting line-up.
Dec 12, 2018 · 49 min
#28 Andrew Copson
Andrew Copson is Chief Executive of Humanists UK, previously known as the British Humanist Association, and was formerly Director of Education and Public Affairs at the same organisation. He is also President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, the global umbrella body for atheist, humanist, sceptic and secularist organisations. He has contributed to several books on secularism and humanism and is the author of Secularism: Politics, Religion, and Freedom. In this episode he discusses his childhood in the midlands, his sacred values of freedom, family and community, and how Blair’s backing of faith schools in the late nineties felt like a disruption of destiny. The episode also covers the pressures on campaigning organisations around integrity, navigating adversarial situations productively and the sometimes unspoken challenges of being friends across divides. This episode was edited for content and clarity. If you would like to listen to the full version, you can access it here: https://soundcloud.com/thesacredpodcast/28-andrew-copson-full-interview/s-EFaPh
Nov 28, 2018 · 37 min
#27 Remona Aly
Remona Aly is a journalist who writes for the Guardian, presents Pause For Thought on BBC Radio 2, Something Understood on BBC Radio 4, and the podcast Things Unseen. Previously, she was the deputy editor of emel, a glossy Muslim lifestyle magazine, and is director of communications of the Exploring Islam Foundation. In this episode she discusses how she finds riches and wisdom in a wide range of faith traditions — but is ultimately “in love” with Islam, how she deals with the abuse she gets as a public Muslim woman, and why she loves going to Friday night dinner with her Jewish friends.
Nov 14, 2018 · 43 min
#26 Seth Anziska
Dr Seth Anziska an American historian living in London. He is the Mohamed S. Farsi-Polonsky Lecturer in Jewish-Muslim Relations at University College London and a visiting fellow at the U.S./Middle East Project. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Policy, and Haaretz, and He is the author of Preventing Palestine: A Political History from Camp David to Oslo In this episode, Seth talks about his orthodox Jewish upbringing, the role of historical records in understanding ourselves, and why powerless populations often lose access to their past through lack of archives or reliance on oral history. He discusses why he resists commenting on every controversy, the “noble dream” of objectivity, and why he is an academic willing to be open about his personal story.
Oct 31, 2018 · 36 min
#25 Chine McDonald
Chine McDonald is the media and PR lead for Christian Aid, one of the world's largest and best known non profit organisations. She was previously director of communications & membership for the Evangelical Alliance, overseeing the editorial and fundraising teams, as well as the team that looks after 3,600 church and 600 organisation members. She read theology at Cambridge University, where she was also news editor of the university newspaper Varsity. In this episode, Chine talks about growing up in Lagos, Nigeria before moving to South London, her experiences growing up with faith in her household, and how she navigated that faith when attending university. She also talks about how race and gender are essential parts of any discussion around common values, and how "opting out of identity politics" is much easier said than done, especially if you are a woman of colour.
Oct 17, 2018 · 39 min
#24 Casper ter Kuile
Casper ter Kuile is a host of the "Harry Potter and the Sacred Text" podcast, a show that dissects J.K. Rowling’s classic series as if it were the Torah or the Bible. He was a Ministry Innovation Fellow at Harvard Divinity School and is also a strategist at the podcast "On Being" with Krista Tippett. In this episode, Casper talks about growing up in a non- religious environment but coming to religion on his own terms, his history in climate activism and how that led him to divinity school, as well as why it's useful explore texts like Harry Potter as 'sacred', as a way to appreciate its nuances and more subtle, but still prescient, messages.