Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg is rabbi of New North London Synagogue and Senior Rabbi of Masorti Judaism, here in the UK. He’s also the author of numerous books, including ‘Walking with the Light: from Frankfurt to Finchley’, ‘Things My Dog has Taught Me: about being a better human’ and his latest – ‘Listening for God in Torah and Creation’

Justin and Belle speak with Jonathan about the workings of Jewish scripture, the nature of awe, wonder, and sensitivity and our reposnibility for the care of the natural world. 

For more from Rabbi Jonathan: https://jonathanwittenberg.org/

For Re-Enchanting: https://www.seenandunseen.com/podcast

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Professor Lady Sue Black is one of the world’s leading forensic scientists. Police forces, the Foreign Office and the UN have called upon her evidence in countless high-profile investigations. She is currently President of St. John’s College, Oxford, and in 2021 entered the House of Lords as a cross-bench peer. 

She has penned numerous books, including the Saltire Prize winning ‘All That Remains: A Life in Death’ and her latest book, ‘Written in Bone: hidden stories in what we leave behind’. In 2024, Professor Lady Black was also appointed to the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle – the highest honour in Scotland. 

In this episode of Re-Enchanting, Justin and Belle speak to Sue about her first time working on a dead body, the stories that our bodies tell after death, her work in the wake of the Kosovo war and the 2004 tsunami, and - ultimately - how our reluctance to look death in the eye is profoundly hurting us. 

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

For Re-Enchanting: https://www.seenandunseen.com/podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rupert Shortt is an author and research associate at the Von Hugel Institute, University Of Cambridge and a former Religion Editor for the Times Literary Supplement. 

His latest book ’The Eclipse of Christianity… and why it matters’ has been praised by Tom Holland as ‘ A brilliant survey of Christianity’s decline in Britain- how it happened and why it matters, by one of our most learned and stimulating apologists’. 

Belle and Justin talk with Rupert about why mainstream churches are in decline across the West and why Europe’s historic faith remains critical to the survival of humane culture.

Rupert Shortt: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/rupert-shortt/the-eclipse-of-christianity/9781399802765/

For Re-Enchanting: https://www.seenandunseen.com/podcast

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rev Les Isaac OBE is founder of Ascension Trust. 

Les came to national attention in 2022 when his message about integrity and the common good at the Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast set in motion a chain of events that led to the resignation of Boris Johnson in the following days. 

Les is best known as the pioneer of the Street Pastors movement. Every weekend Street Pastors provide care and support to late night clubbers in nearly 250 cities and towns across the UK, a story Les tells in his book ‘Faith On The Streets’.

Les joins Justin and Belle to talk about re-enchanting the pubs, clubs and streets of our cities.

Les Isaac: https://www.streetpastors.org/

For Re-Enchanting: https://www.seenandunseen.com/podcast

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Francis Collins is a physician and geneticist whose groundbreaking work has led to the discovery of the cause of cystic fibrosis among other diseases. He led the Human Genome Project which first sequenced the entire human DNA, established the science-faith organisation BioLogos, and has gone on to serve 3 US presidents as the director of the National Institutes of Health

Francis’ new book is titled ‘The Road To Wisdom: On truth, science, faith and trust’ and covers some of the controversies and challenges he has faced personally in his public role as a scientist and government advisor leading the USA’s Covid response during the height of the pandemic.

In the light of the 2024 presidential election Justin and Belle talk to Francis about whether we can re-enchant truth, trust and wisdom in an increasingly polarised world.

Francis Collins: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Road-Wisdom-Truth-Science-Faith/dp/1399822314

For Re-Enchanting: https://www.seenandunseen.com/podcast

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Claire Gilbert is an author, lecturer, mentor and retreat leader and was the founding director of the Westminster Abbey Institute. She is the author of books including ‘Miles To Go Before I Sleep: Letters on Hope, Death and Learning to Live’ and her most recent publication ‘I, Julian’ a novel about the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich.

Belle and Justin talk to Claire about how Julian Of Norwich's 'Revelations Of Divine Love' from 650 years ago, can speak to modern spiritual hunger.

Claire Gilbert: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Julian-fictional-autobiography-Norwich/dp/1399807544

For Re-Enchanting: https://www.seenandunseen.com/podcast

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Irving-Stonebraker is an Australian historian whose new book ‘Priests of History: stewarding the past in an ahistoric age’, says that, in our age of self-invention, modern people are profoundly disconnected from the stories, practises and history that once gave them their identity.

Justin and Belle talk to Sarah about re-enchanting an ahistorical age and about her own journey from atheism to Christianity as a young academic at Cambridge and Oxford in the early 2000s.

Sarah Irving-Stonebraker: https://www.stonebraker.com.au/

For Re-Enchanting: https://www.seenandunseen.com/podcast 

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Siku is an artist, author, theologian, musician, and a leading comic book artist. He has worked for 2000AD as artist on titles such as Judge Dredd as well as Marvel UK and COM X. He is the author of the book ‘Batman Is Jesus’ and is of course well known for the graphic novel, The Manga Bible.

Siku sits down with Justin and Belle to discuss the creative processes of making a comic book, the theology of story-telling and why he thinks 'Batman is Jesus'.

For Siku: https://www.theartofsiku.com/

For Re-Enchanting: https://www.seenandunseen.com/podcast

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Zoe Clark-Coates MBE has become one of the UK's most trusted voices when it comes to the gigantic topics of grief and loss. She is an author, podcaster and TV broadcaster, as well as the founder and CEO of the Mariposa Trust and co-chair of the most extensive government baby loss review in recent years.

Zoe shares her own experience of grief, having lost five babies, and tells of how her faith and her sorrow have always been well acquainted.

For Zoe: https://www.zoeadelle.co.uk/

For advice and support regarding some of the topics that have been mentioned in this episode: https://www.sayinggoodbye.org/

For Government Issued Certificates of Baby Loss (UK): https://www.gov.uk/request-baby-loss-certificate

For Re-Enchanting: https://www.seenandunseen.com/podcasts

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jack Palmer-White is Senior Director at the Good Faith Partnership, an organisation that seeks to bridge some of the gaps between different sectors and, in so doing, find some innovative solutions for some of society’s more difficult problems. Before this, Jack was the Anglican Communion’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and senior advisor to the Archbishop of Canterbury on social and public affairs.

With over a decade of experience of working with charities, faith-based organisations, and social movements to help bring about change at the local, national and global level – Jack talks with Belle and Justin about the nature of politics and, ultimately, how we can re-enchant what it means to love our neighbour.

For more from Good Faith Partnership: https://goodfaith.org.uk/

For Re-Enchanting: https://www.seenandunseen.com/podcast

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.