This podcast is hosted by Dr Matthew Barber-Rowell, communications officer and research fellow for the William Temple Foundation, and a Dean’s scholar at Virginia Theological Seminary and Vice President for Communications at VTS Nicky Burridge. In this series we explore the contours of communications faith based organisations and dialogue in the public square. We will draw on stories and experiences from both sides of the Atlantic and consider what these might mean for people and institutions who are seeking to contribute to public life in the UK,  US and around the world. 

In this special edition of the William Temple Foundation Podcast, our Director of Research Chris Baker, hosts a panel of international experts who explore the theme of Ethical Robots through the lenses of theology and philosophy, offering innovative insights from their own work and discussing key emerging issues such as the current paradigm shift in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a post-digital world. Guests include Canon Dr Eve Poole (Widely acclaimed Theologian and Institutional Leader), Prof Nigel Crooke (Oxford Brookes University), Dr Anna Puzio (University of Twente and University of Oxford) and Rev Eric Trazzo (University of Divinity, Australia). Each panelist offers a 10 minute reflection from their own work, and then Prof Baker guides an open dialogue, exploring the future of this pioneering and interdisciplinary dialogue.

This podcast is offered in memory of Rev Dr John Reader, William Temple Research Fellow and Chair of the Ethical Future Network at University of Oxford, who passed away unexpectedly in late 2023.

Richard Irvine ends the series by joining the dots between geology and anthropology. Are these vast timescales ultimately dehumanising? And can we learn something about time from monastic communities?

In this episode, Simone Kotva speaks about deep time, religious apocalypse, and the ‘end of the world’. She makes the case that what we believe is potentially much less important than spiritual exercises and practices of attention for encouraging ecological concern.

In this episode, Cecil Abungu explains some of the philosophy of longtermism, and how it ties in to both the effective altruism movement and the study of existential risk. He also explores a variety of African perspectives on longtermism, suggesting how western voices might learn from indigenous thought when discussing the distant future.

Michelle Bastian raises some possible concerns with deep time thinking. She introduces a wide range of different ways of thinking about time, and reflects on some of the links between time and power. Are some of the popular engagements with deep time causing more harm than good?

Manjana Milkoreit discusses the importance of imagination for thinking about the future. From climate fiction to dystopian film, she digs into what such creations reveal about our current priorities in the present—and why such imaginings need to be grounded in diverse communities.

In the first episode of Deep Time: Visions of the Earth’s Future, Richard Fisher explains what ‘deep time’ is and why people have become so interested in the long-term view. From Zoroastrian fires and Shinto temples to the concept of ‘cathedral thinking’, he also unpacks some of religion’s relationship to deep time.

Re-envisioning the British state in a time of crisis: a critical revisiting of the Balliol connection of Temple, Tawney and Beveridge for the 21stCentury

80 years ago, the Beveridge Report set out the ideas which we associate with the Welfare State. Also in 1942, Archbishop William Temple had published his Christianity & Social Order, with a similar manifesto in an appendix. 40 years earlier, Beveridge and Temple had been undergraduates at Balliol, together with R H Tawney, before each lived and worked in Toynbee Hall in London. Each was influenced by the Master, Edward Caird, who was himself associated with the Idealist philosophy of Balliol’s T H Green. Beveridge and Temple were writing, of course, in wartime. As our age grapples with Russia’s war in Ukraine, with the after-effects of the pandemic, with the environmental and cost of living crises, with multiple challenges around equality, diversity and inclusion, and with the breakdown of trust in political leaders, Balliol and the William Temple Foundation are holding a symposium for the 80th anniversary of these publications by William Beveridge and William Temple on The Influence of Idealism & Ideas: did the Balliol ethos of the Victorian and Edwardian eras make a difference to UK society after the Second World War; are there lessons for the 21st century?

9.30 Registrations/Coffee

10.00 Welcomes and Introduction – Chris Baker (William Temple Foundation and Goldsmiths, University of London)

Panel 1: From Idealism to Realism – The philosophical roots of Welfare State

10.15 Simon Skinner (Balliol, Oxford)

10.45 Stephen Spencer (Anglican Communion Office)

11.15 – 11.45 Coffee

Panel 2: The Welfare State in Context – Historical and Policy Perspectives

11.45 – 12.15 Matthew Grimley (Merton, Oxford)

12.15 – 12.45 Lawrence Goldman (St Peter’s, Oxford)

12.45 – 13.45 Lunch

Panel 3: The State we are in: Contemporary reflections on the Balliol legacy

13.45 – 14.45

Panel response and Q & A : 10 minutes each and 20 mins plenary

· Maria Power (Blackfriars Hall, Oxford)

· Tina Hearn (University of Birmingham)

· Anthony Reddie (Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture, Regents Park College, Oxford)

· Simon Lee (Aston University)

14.45 – 15.05

Pulling the Threads together – themes and trajectories

Professor Chris Baker (Goldsmiths, University of London and William Temple Foundation)

15.15 – 15.30 Tea and Depart

Canon Kathryn Fitzsimons, Anglican priest of two parishes in highly contrasting areas of Leeds, reflects on some of the costs to challenging poverty and inequality in the city, and engaging with power structures to bring meaningful change.