Radio programmes

1. The Digital Human: Sin-eaters TX: 02/10/2017 Dur: 27’50” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Scotland Radio Features

They’re the invisible janitors of the internet scrubbing our social media feeds clean of the violence, abuse and hate that might either offend, distress or harm us. They’re called content moderators and thousands of them sit in front of computers across the globe from Germany to India to the Philippines. They sift through unfathomable volumes of photos and videos in search of content that ‘breaks the rules’ but what price do they pay in shielding our eyes.

That’s question posed by psychologist and technology writer Dr Aleks Krotoski in this episode of The Digital Human. And to explore this she draws on the idea of sin-eating; an age old practice that flourished across the British Isles up until the end of the 19th century.

When someone died the sin eater would be summoned to consume a ritualistic meal over the corpse and in doing so they would take on their sins. It was the preserve of those on the fringes of their communities. Whether they were outcasts because of this, or to start with folklorists can't say. What is known for certain though is that they were among the poorest - who else would do it?

While the practice may have died out there is a modern day digital equivalent in content moderation. These are the lowest of the low in the digital economy. Poorly paid, poorly trained and poorly protected from all the gruesomeness that would otherwise proliferate across the web. Their employers don’t like to talk about this dirty secret lest it tarnish their reputation as a safe place for its users and probably more importantly advertisers. We hear from content moderators about the harm they come to doing this crucial job and how unscrupulous employers exploit the newness of the job to shirk their responsibilities to them.

2. Salam to Queen and Country TX: 29/03/2017 Dur: 27’40” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: Blakeway Productions

Zubeida Malik speaks to serving British Muslims about what it is like to be in the Army today.

In the last two campaigns, Muslims in the British army have faced criticism from some members of their own communities, who were opposed to what they saw as taking up arms against fellow Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi became the first, and now only, British Muslim soldier to be killed in Afghanistan in 2006, there was an outpouring of sympathy from his local community, but there was criticism from some quarters too. His death highlighted the role of Britain's Muslim soldiers and soon afterwards a plot to kidnap and behead a Muslim soldier was discovered in Birmingham. Zubeida Malik meets serving British Muslims to hear their stories about joining up and their tours of duty. She asks what it was like to be in the army after 9/11 and during the so called War on Terror. And with under 600 Muslim personnel serving in the British Army, Zubeida asks the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, what is being done to overcome the problems with recruiting young British Muslims into the army today.

3. Heart and Soul: Faith in the Fire TX: 11/08/2017 Dur: 26’27” Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: Blakeway Productions

On the night the Grenfell Tower fire began on 14 June 2017, the mosques and churches which encircle the tower block in Kensington, West London, provided bases for vital relief work. It was Ramadan so many Muslim faithful were returning from prayers when the fire started, and they were able to alert residents and help people get out of the burning building.

In the hours and days that followed, in one of the richest areas of one of the wealthiest cities in the world, people of all religions were mobilised in the crisis and came together to offer crucial pastoral support and practical help, while the authorities were accused of being slow to respond. Presenter Zubeida Malik meets the residents and religious leaders to find out what happened that night and how they continue to administer emotional support and funeral prayers in the aftermath of the tragedy. And she asks them what kind of answers faith can provide in such a crisis.

4. Big Brief TX: 05/05/2017 Dur: 26’30” Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: Whistledown Productions

What's it like to be the bishop with the biggest brief in the world? Meet Dickson Chilongani, bishop of central Tanganyika in Tanzania. This is the largest Anglican diocese in the world. It has 700,000 Christians in 265 parishes. It's also one of the most forward-looking dioceses in Africa - the first diocese in Tanzania to ordain women and a key player in training priests who can lead their local community as well as preach the gospel.

Zita Adamson listens in to Bishop Dickson as he goes about his work ministering to both the spiritual and practical needs of his many parishioners. What is it about this modest, unassuming man that won him a landslide victory in a country where Episcopal victories are normally hotly contested? And why did he lose all his friends on the day he became bishop? The journey takes us to Tanzania's first school for the blind at Buigiri. We also visit Msalato Theological College where a female student describes how villagers thought she was too young and thin to be a priest. And we squeeze into the crowded church in the village of Samaria where people affected by leprosy tell the bishop that their children are thrown out of primary school because they can't afford uniforms and exercise books. We also meet Dickson the family man and Dickson the Man U supporter. We call in on his mother who can't read or write. We hear why Bishop Dickson's son prayed that his father would not get the top job. And along the way we discover just why it's so important to the bishop to get his hands dirty on the farm.

This intimate, reflective and, ultimately, joyful portrait offers powerful insight into what Christians in the West can learn from their African counterparts.

(This was the first radio programme that the producer Zita Adamson ever made.)

5. Fashion Brands and the Hijab TX: 28/04/2017 Dur: 23’00” Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: BBC Trending

BBC Trending - Fashion Brands and the Hijab

Why are fashion brands using the hijab - and why is there a growing backlash against it by many Muslims?

BBC Trending producer/reporter and former hijab wearer Anisa Subedar looks at the commercialisation of the headscarf and its use in advertising and fashion.

This year alone, advertisements for companies and brands like Vogue, H&M, Pepsi Mango, Tommy Hilfiger, Uniqlo, DKNY and Dolce and Gabbana have all featured women wearing the hijab.

The growing popularity of the headscarf among young Muslim women has led to a wave of internet trends, with thousands of accounts on social platforms like Instagram dedicated to ‘hijabi fashion’.

In this programme, Anisa hears from young women who wear the hijab and embrace the mainstreaming of this potent religious and cultural symbol – and from others who decry the commercialisation of their beliefs. And she takes a truly global view, taking in perspectives from countries such as Iran - where wearing a headscarf isn’t a choice, commercial or otherwise.

She speaks to some of the biggest names on social media who have been vocal on this topic, including a woman who chose to ‘de-hijab’ because of popular culture pressures and to a female Muslim executive at one of world’s biggest advertising agencies.

6. A New Church for the Red State TX: 21/10/2017 Dur: 49'27" Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: Overtone Productions Ltd

The Russian Revolution of 1917 brought a radical political change. But at the same time, a lesser- known group of religious reformers were busy plotting a better future for Russia’s souls – and a new, more democratic, Orthodox Church, closer to the people. Caroline Wyatt explores whether they were simply being used by the Bolsheviks, or whether the Revolution’s answer to Martin Luther almost prompted a real Russian Reformation.

The leader of the reform movement - priest Alexander Vvedensky - established a new community, the Renovationist Church, in order to implement reforms such as the translation of the Gospels into everyday Russian rather than Church Slavonic, and giving power to the lower orders of clergy and the laity. When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 Vvedensky thought history was on his side and that revolution in the Church was imminent once the new regime supported it. Indeed it became an extraordinarily successful phenomenon, taking over the leadership of the mainstream Russian Orthodox Church in 1923 and becoming the only legitimate religious community in the Soviet state for several years.

Vvedensky’s daughter, Olga Chubakova - now in her 90's and one of the last surviving eyewitnesses of the Renovationist Movement - speaks for the first time about her father and his devastation when the Bolsheviks later switched allegiance to the mainstream Orthodox Church.

Leading academics in Russia, the UK and the United States reveal the real motivations of the Bolsheviks: to divide and conquer the Church altogether. As well as the story of a charismatic 20th century Martin Luther, the programme is a testimony to the strength of Orthodox faith in Russia as well as its close allegiance, for good or ill, with the Russian State.

The academic consultant from the University of Oxford was Andrey Levitskiy.

7. Lord's Prayer TX: 14/04/2017 Dur: 56'20" Broadcaster: BBC Radio Cornwall Production Company: BBC Radio Cornwall

BBC Radio Cornwall listeners know how to make a seed of an idea into something really special. Presenter Naomi Kennedy mentioned on air that she could remember singing the Lees version of the Lord’s Prayer in Chapel while growing up in Cornwall, but also the David Fanshawe version at university; two very different interpretations of the prayer said by millions. Soon the listeners were texting and emailing their favourite versions: Malotte which is sung by many Male Voice Choirs, a locally written one about Cornwall’s Prayer Book Rebellion of the 16th century in Latin, Cornish and English, and one by a local composer to mark the Bible being translated into Cornish. Naomi also got an email from a Jewish listener saying he often wondered whether Jews of Jesus’ time would have also said the Lord’s Prayer.

This got Naomi thinking and she created an hour long documentary exploring why the Lord’s Prayer fits so beautifully to music, its historical context and answering that listener’s question about whether the prayer would have crossed different faiths. This delightful and endearing documentary shows how an idea can grow organically with the listeners leading its path.

8. The Last Missionary of Kanaipur TX: 03/11/2017 Dur: 43’44” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Radio Drama London

Rebecca is a British Christian missionary, who has been devoted to her life and work in a remote village in Bangladesh for the last 20 years. But a shadow hangs over the Mission. With the rise of social unrest and Islamist violence against ‘kaffirs’ and proselytisers, their safety is under serious threat. A Catholic priest has recently been murdered.

Rebecca is visited by an old friend, and old flame, Philip, who works for the Mission back in the UK. He is British-Bengali, recently widowed and is experiencing a crisis of faith, and serious doubts about the role of white missionaries and their presumption that they can offer guidance to communities from other cultures. The Mission has sent him to review the security of mission staff and, if necessary, persuade Rebecca to return to the UK.

Rebecca is still positive about her role in Kanaipur, but an encounter with Aminul, a young Muslim drug addict from a neighbouring village, starts rumours that she is evangelising. Philip comes to stay in the old Mission house and meets Rebecca’s congregation. One of Carol’s protégées, Rupa, tells Philip that several years ago, Rebecca performed a kind of miracle, walking out into the middle of a murderous mob. Philip is sceptical.

Aminul’s unpredictable behaviour causes tension between the Christian and Muslim villages and he ends up stabbing Emmanuel, an aspiring Bengali priest. After this, an angry, guilty, Rebecca turns Aminul away, telling him that God will not forgive him. She realises that she has to leave the Mission and return to the UK.

A timely and urgent story that explores a country in flux, as well as the integral conflict within western Christian aid organisations working in developing countries. The drama is based on Ben’s own first-hand experiences as the son of missionaries in Bangladesh.

9. Out of the Ordinary - A Righteous Education TX: 10/03/2017 Dur: 28’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Radio and Music, Bristol

Jolyon Jenkins investigates the network of private fundamentalist Christian schools in Britain that teach that evolution is untrue, homosexuality is wrong, and that wives should submit to their husbands.

These schools use the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) curriculum, originally devised by a fundamentalist Texan who thought that all education needed to assume the literal truth of the bible. The entire curriculum, including science, makes continual reference to God's plan. It promotes creationism, and the false idea that humans and dinosaurs co-existed on earth. The system requires children to sit in "offices" - desks screened off from their neighbours - and work their way in silence through the "packets of accelerated Christian education" and then take multiple choice tests. The system requires no teachers, only "supervisors". Pupils do not usually take A levels but special Christian exams.

Although some pupils make it to university and have successful careers, Jolyon speaks to others who feel that the system has not served them well. Are ACE pupils being well prepared for life in modern Britain? With so much political focus on fundamentalist Muslim Schools, are these Christian schools slipping under the net? For years, Ofsted has appeared to show little interest in the contents of the ACE curriculum but a few recent inspections of ACE schools suggest that this may be changing.

10. Heart and Soul: My Father the Priest TX: 03/11/2017 Dur: 30’00” Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: Whistledown Productions

This documentary tells the powerful and moving stories of people who were fathered by Catholic priests. These are stories of living with stigma, of seeking recognition and acknowledgement, and of finding the strength to say out loud what previously could not be said.

Around the world, thousands of children have been fathered by supposedly celibate Catholic priests. Most are never acknowledged. Those whose paternity does become known are often shamed into silence. Some have been forced to sign confidentiality agreements, other discovered in adulthood that their mothers became pregnant as a result of sexual assaults.

Reporter Hugh Costello meets children of priests as they struggle to gain recognition and respect. Peter, in Uganda, spent decades seeking redress from his father’s religious order; Gloria, in the Philippines, has a five-year-old son by a priest who promised to be with her but has since left the country; and Sarah, in the UK, has used her emotionally traumatic personal experience as the basis for a doctorate on the global phenomenon of priests’ children.

A new campaigning group is having some success in holding priests – and their bishops – to account. But as the Vatican under Pope Francis continues to reject calls for priests to be allowed to marry, the programme asks: how willing is the church to put the needs of children above those of the institution?

11. Can you be an elite sportsperson and a Christian? TX: 02/06/2017 Dur: 32’27” Broadcaster: https://audioboom.com/posts/5975347-can-you-be-an-elite-sportsperson-and-a- christian Production Company: Christians in Sport

The Christians in Sport podcast is listened to by top level athletes with and without faith. In this episode we ask the question, can you be a Christian and an elite athlete? Having met a series of elite sportspeople over the course of the year, we now discuss this key issue that comes out of many of the interviews. Maybe it’s something you’re asking yourself as you seek to follow Jesus or are considering doing so?

In this episode, Danno chairs the discussion as former Olympic rower Debbie Flood and ex-Premier League footballer Linvoy Primus explain how they realised that it was possible to combine elite sporting performance and Christian faith. Both Debbie and Linvoy are honest about the battles they faced in following Jesus at the highest level of sport, but they’re in no doubt this was what God called them to do and not only that – He enabled them to shine for Him.

During the podcast, we hear clips from previous interviews with wild man turned rugby coach Chris Jones, ex-England women’s hooker Ann O’Flynn and Paralympic sprinter Niel Louw. Each pose key challenges for elite sportspeople, in particular, and get our panellists reflecting on their own experiences.

12. A Tale of Two Bishops TX: 25/12/2017 Dur: 60’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio Kent Production Company: BBC Radio Kent

A conversational debate on several of the biggest news stories of 2017, with the Bishops of Rochester & Dover - with 5 pieces of Christmas music, selected by them.

Discussion points included Grenfell, the terror attacks in London & Manchester, Christmas in prisons, gay clergy and same-sex marriage in church. 2017 was a year that challenged many peoples' faith - particularly in the aftermath of Grenfell - and the programme aimed to reflect that.

The programme was intended to be gritty and thought-provoking and set out the Bishops' agenda for 2018.

13. Remembering Passchendaele: The Brothers of Deddington TX: 12/11/2017 Dur: 60’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio Oxford Production Company: BBC Radio Oxford

On Remembrance Sunday to mark the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Passchendale, BBC Radio Oxford's faith presenter Sophie Law followed in the footsteps of two sets of brothers from the small Oxfordshire village of Deddington who lost their lives and explored the role faith played in this bloody battle. By localising such a huge historical event, through showcase storytelling, we were able to convey the real impact it had on everyday people.

Sophie follows the story of the Hancox and Chislett brothers from the war memorial in the grounds of Deddington Churchyard to the battlefields of Belgium. We learn about their role in the community as local store owners and bell ringers at the Church, through to the part they played in the war and tragically visit the sites of their gravestones and names listed on the Menin Gate in Ypres.

Faith features throughout the programme with the stories anchored from Deddington Church and Sophie is joined in the studio by Padre Tom Hiney. They tackle the difficult question of where God was during this battle in which half a million men lost their lives and the front line moved only 5 miles.

14. Oliver Park – The Easter Riots TX: 14/04/2017 Dur: 54’45” Broadcaster: www.thingsunseen.co.uk Production Company: CTVC

Broadchurch actor Joe Sims (Nige Carter) stars in a drama looking back on the dramatic events which took place in ‘West Trent’ during Easter 2016. The fictional story is told in documentary format, using interviews improvised by the cast.

In 2012, Paul Arnold (director) and Nick Warburton (author) created an award-winning series of audio diaries re-telling the story of Holy Week in real time. In 2017 the same team returned to the story, but with a original approach. Things Unseen is known for its quality documentaries, interviews and discussions. For Easter 2017 it presented a documentary about fictional present-day events, which resonate with the Easter story. The contributors are played, of course, by actors. But they’re not reading from a script. Instead, using material supplied by Nick Warburton about themselves and what they have seen, they respond, unscripted, to questions put to them by our presenter.

Oliver Park, in the centre of the fictional city of West Trent, has become host to a camp for refugees, which has now grown to include some homeless, immigrants who’ve recently lost their jobs, and a few splinter protest groups. A vigilante group, City Watch, has been established in response, and with a march planned by the camp supporters, tensions are high. Into this situation comes Carl Franklin, with a small group of followers including Charlie Hammond, and a radical but peaceful message. An infiltrator from this group leads them into an ambush by City Watch, and whist Carl’s supporters flee, Carl himself remains, with devastating consequences. The cycle of violence seems set to continue, but remarkable events the following day take things in a new direction.

This programme originated in two parts on www.thingsunseen.co.uk. For simplicity, the version transmitted as an omnibus on Premier Christian Radio has been submitted.

15. Remote Control War TX: 10/01/2017 Dur: 26’29” Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: CTVC

When Donald Trump took office, he inherited sweeping powers to kill terrorists and militants. The favoured method was what the US Air Force call Remotely Piloted Aircraft, but which go by a more common name - drones.

Drones are a powerful weapon in the fight against terror. American drones have killed terrorist leaders and devastated al-Qaeda. The US government says their lethal precision keeps civilian casualties to a minimum, that they are cheaper than fighter jets and, crucially, they minimise the risk to US troops.

That is why the US public supports their use. It is also why President Obama oversaw a dramatic expansion in drone strikes. The US Air Force has ordered a doubling of the number of drone pilots being trained.

But a growing number of critics fear we are entering an ever-growing spiral of drone warfare. They say the strikes are radicalising more people than they are killing and point to the proliferation of drones, with some 89 countries now possessing them and terror groups like ISIS experimenting with their use. So what happens when everyone has drones?

It is also argued that these strikes have been carried out with minimal oversight, guided by a policy that is largely secret and killing more civilians than acknowledged - that the strikes are illegal and unethical.

And then there is the effect on the pilots sitting in their trailers thousands of miles away; PTSD and exhaustion are being blamed for a recruitment crisis, while many former pilots complain that this is a cowardly war.

So as Donald Trump prepared to take office, Vin Ray looked at the challenges facing the drone programme and how drones are fundamentally changing the face of warfare.

16. The Icon Painters of Bethlehem TX: 22/12/2017 Dur: 26’29” Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: CTVC

The lives of young Palestinian Christians are being transformed by this ancient spiritual art. At the heart of Bethlehem's old city sits the Bethlehem Icon Centre, a school training local Palestinian Christians to become icon painters - some of them to a professional standard. Unique in the Middle East, the school is best known for Our Lady of the Wall, a large-scale, striking image of the Virgin Mary painted onto the Israeli security barrier.

Its founder is a British icon painter, Ian Knowles, who aims to help Palestinian Christians reconnect with a nearly lost part of their spiritual heritage - and give some of them a skill that can feed a family in a difficult economic climate.

Mark Dowd visits Ian and his students at their studio in Bethlehem to discover what it means to them to study this ancient Christian art in Christ’s birthplace - in a town where Christians are now in the minority following large-scale emigration, and which has the highest unemployment rate anywhere in the West Bank.

Away from the school, we meet some of the students' families and local traders who sell Christian crafts to find out more about what it means to be a Christian in Bethlehem. Despite all the economic hardships, preparing for Christmas in Bethlehem is still special to the students who are making icons of the Madonna and child.

17. The Assassination of Santa TX: 21/12/2017 Dur: 27’23” Broadcaster: www.thingsunseen.co.uk Production Company: CTVC

The Angel Gabriel goes rogue in a bid to deal with the over-commercialisation of Christmas. A fresh and irreverent look at the knotty issue of Christmas and shopping.

The cast includes vocal virtuoso Kerry Shale as Santa, comic genius Philip Fox as Gabriel, and star of Radio 4’s ‘Hudson and Pepperdine Show’, Mel Hudson, as the put-upon Lori. ‘I have to confess’, says Lori in a prayer that frames the action, ‘…punching Rudolph in the nose was a low point’.

Script-writer Alastair Collinson joined CTVC a year ago. Despite winning awards for his writing and having had short films produced, he’s predominantly worked on commissioned but as yet un-filmed screenplays, so he is thrilled to hear his work come to life in this new medium of audio.

18. A Culture of Encounter TX: 14/11/2017 Dur: 42’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Radio Current Affairs

Inspired by Pope Francis’ plea for us to create ‘A Culture of Encounter’, this programme addresses an urgent moral question – how do we engage with people who are different from us?

Our starting point was that, while we may be more connected than ever, in many ways we are strangers to each other. If you don’t believe that, just ask yourself - how many of your close friends have radically different politics, values, beliefs or life experiences from you? And when did you last share a meal with someone from a totally different background?

Presenter Douglas Alexander tries to find out why we've become so polarised as a nation and what we can do about it. His time as a politician convinced him that government alone cannot mend Britain's divisions. So he asks - what can we do as a society and as individuals?

Douglas seeks advice from those who've studied Britain's fault lines and traced their causes - from political and economic forces to neuroscience, psychology and increasing ethnic and religious diversity. We also hear from those with expertise in bringing together people from different backgrounds - from the head of the UK army to an Edinburgh cooking club run by the Cyrenians.

We do not shy away from the fact that some of the leading thinkers in this field are people of faith - secular academics share a prime-time slot with a Jesuit priest and a Church of Scotland minister. The programme represents a serious attempt to promote understanding and explore ways of building community. To give just one example of its impact – so many listeners were inspired to volunteer at the cooking club we featured, the Cyrenians were able to start a new club in one of Edinburgh’s most deprived areas.

19. Something Understood: Shrines TX: 12/03/2017 Dur: 27’39” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: 7digital

Mark Tully has been the principal presenter of the series Something Understood since it began on Radio 4 in 1995. The programme uses literature, music and interview from all over the world to explore a different spiritual, religious or cultural theme each week and it is broadcast at five past six on a Sunday morning and again at half past eleven on Sunday night. The tone reflects the time of day and the programme is designed to be enjoyed both by those who want to follow its wide ranging argument and those who like to dip into the eclectic and often unexpected literary and musical treasures it contains. It offers its target audience a gentle space for reflection as dawn breaks or as the night draws in.

This edition was recorded in Mark’s home town of Delhi and explores the continuing appeal of shrines to modern worshippers and asks what it is that draws pilgrims, both religious and secular, to them. The programme is centred around a visit to his local Sufi dargah, or shrine, in Nizamuddin West, where Mark considers what shrines have to offer us spiritually, socially and psychologically. He talks to journalist and Sufi devotee Sadia Delvi at this holy shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya, the mausoleum of India’s most famous Sufi saint. The Qawwals sing, offerings are made and food is shared as they discuss the pluralism of worship in such places.

Mark also introduces readings by poets Robert Lowell and Edmund Blunden, and by journalist Jon Lichfield, along with music from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Matthew Halsall and David Bowie.

The readers are Emily Raymond, Francis Cadder and Jasper Britton.

Presenter: Mark Tully Producer: Frank Stirling

20. Giving Death Back to the People TX: 25/06/2017 Dur: 26’29” Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: BBC Radio Current Affairs

"Giving death back to the people..." is how Cara Mair describes her work as a funeral director. Her company, Arka Original Funerals, is part of a movement to de-industrialise, and re-personalise funerals in the UK.

Cara began in the business as a freelance embalmer. But she doesn’t do that anymore. “It started to send me do-lally,” she says. When she was working here, there and everywhere as a freelance, she was often appalled by what she experienced - the conveyor belt of death, the disrespect shown to bodies, funeral directors puffed up with their own self-importance, and especially, their power over their clients.

When Cara made the decision to start her own business, she was determined to do things differently. This edition of Heart and Soul explores Cara’s world, and her mission to change how her clients in the UK experience one of life’s most significant rituals.

Heart and Soul hears from those who have first-hand experience of Cara’s philosophy. Losing someone provokes deep upset and uncertainty in us – what difference has Cara’s approach made to the process of saying goodbye?

21. Living With The Gods – Episode 1 The Lion Man TX: 23/10/2017 Dur: 14’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: Documentaries Unit, BBC Radio Production

A 30-part series in which Neil MacGregor investigates the role and expression of shared beliefs through time and around the world. Produced in partnership with the British Museum.

Looking at communities from the distant past to the present day, Neil moves from the beginnings of belief and the elemental worship of fire, water and the sun, through festivals, pilgrimages and sacrifices, to power struggles and political battles between faiths and states.

Questions of faith have recently moved to the centre of the global political stage: an unexpected return to a centuries-old pattern. But what are the connections between structures of belief, and the structures of society? For answers, Neil draws upon objects and curatorial insights from the British Museum and beyond, and travels to key locations: from the winter solstice in a tomb at Newgrange, Ireland, to the waters of the Ganges; from a cave in southern Germany to the disputed city of Jerusalem.

He begins with the Lion Man, a 40,000-year-old ivory sculpture reconstructed from fragments unearthed in 1939. Neil believes that this object is an ideal starting point: "what the archaeologists did as they pieced together the Lion Man is what societies have always done: work with fragmentary evidence to build a picture of the world. This series is about the role that systems of belief (and perhaps even more the rituals that express those beliefs) have played in the creation, and sometimes in the destruction, of societies."

Broadcast over six weeks (Monday to Friday from 23rd October to 1st December) the series was accompanied by an exhibition at the British Museum and supported by a website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09c1mhy). A book of the series will be published in March 2018.

Entry includes a sample of 3 episodes: Lion Man (1); Power of Song (10); Living With Each Other (30). Ep. 1. The Lion Man - Encapsulates or at least introduces the whole series. We are quite keen to submit the entry as a series rather than a single programme (in terms of its ambition and overall aim), though we are happy for it to be judged on the strength of the single edition.

22. Living With The Dead TX: 19/04/2017 Dur: 26’30 Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: BBC Radio Current Affairs

Some Indonesians live alongside dead family members for years. Is this a healthy approach to mortality? Since the beginning of time, man has lived in awe and fear of death, and every culture has faced its mystery through intricate and often ancient rituals. Few, however, are as extreme as those of the Torajan people on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Here, the dead are a constant presence, with corpses often kept in family homes for many years. When funerals are eventually held, they don’t mean goodbye. Once every couple of years, the dead are dug back out for a big family reunion. Is this a morbid obsession? Or could it be a positive way of dealing with the grief of losing a loved one? Reporter Sahar Zand enters these remarkable communities where the dividing line between this world and the next is like a thin veil – a place with lessons for all of us. Exploring these traditions, Sahar seeks to understand the Torajan way of death and finds it changing her own thinking towards the loss of her own father.

23. Analysis: Can We Teach Robots Ethics? TX: 16/10/2017 Dur: 30’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Radio Current Affairs

From driverless cars to "carebots", machines are entering the realm of right and wrong. Should an autonomous vehicle prioritise the lives of its passengers over pedestrians? Should a robot caring for an elderly woman respect her right to life ahead of her right to make her own decisions? And who gets to decide? The challenges facing artificial intelligence are not just technical, but moral - and raise hard questions about what it means to be human.

24. Archive on 4: British Jews, Right and Left TX: 09/12/2017 Dur: 56’30” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Radio Current Affairs

How did Britain’s Jews make their long journey from left to right over the last century? Jo Coburn, presenter of BBC TWO's "Daily Politics", tells this remarkable story by weaving archive and interviews together with the story of her own family.

She speaks with, among others, The Rt. Hon. Edwina Currie, former Conservative minister; Lord Levy, Middle East envoy for Tony Blair when prime minister; The Rt. Hon. Sir Oliver Letwin, M.P., senior adviser to David Cameron; Jon Lansman, founder of Momentum, the grass-roots movement that supports Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader; Rabbi Jonathan Romain of Maidenhead Reform Synagogue; Melanie Phillips, columnist on "The Times" and Ruth Smeeth, Labour M.P. for Stoke-on- Trent, North.

25. Documentary On One: Polar Opposites TX: 22/07/2017 Dur: 43’12” Broadcaster: RTÉ Radio 1 Production Company: Documentary On One, RTÉ Radio 1

In mid 2018, a referendum is being held in Ireland in which every Irish citizen can vote on whether to legalise abortion – or not. A divisive and contentious issue, the issue has been widely debated in recent years.

In May 2017, the Documentary On One team travelled to Iceland. The reason for travelling to Iceland was to move beyond the Irish debate and meet with people who live in a country where abortion was first legalised in 1935.

Whilst there, we meet with Irish priest, Father Denis O’Leary, who has been parish priest in Reykjavik for 28 years. Catholics make up a very small proportion of Icelandic society – less than 4% - and most of the congregation are from countries such as the Philippines and Poland. Two of Fr. Denis’ parishioners are Americans April and Mike Frigge who have lived in Iceland for 20 years.

In 2004, April, Mike and Father Denis started the group Lífs vernd (Defence of life) – a lobby group which would like to see an end to abortion in Iceland.This small group is Iceland’s main pro-life movement. Abortion is not really part of the Icelandic national conversation as it is something that is mainly taken for granted as part of life in Iceland.

According to Icelandic law, a woman seeking an abortion must get the signature of either two doctors or of one doctor and one social worker. We meet with a social worker at Iceland’s National hospital and the head of Gynaecology at the hospital. We also meet with a young woman who has experienced abortion.

In 'Polar Opposites', the Documentary on One takes a look at a country which first legalised abortion over 80yrs ago – at a time when Irish people being asked on whether Ireland should legalise abortion or not.

26. Documentary On One: Do No Harm TX: 28/10/2017 Dur: 40’51” Broadcaster: RTÉ Radio 1 Production Company: Documentary On One, RTÉ Radio 1

In April 2015, a group of young trainee Irish doctors traveled to the Netherlands to learn about a different approach to end of life care. Most of them assumed this would involve a visit to a highly specialised clinic. Instead, they met a family doctor who sometimes shortened his patients’ lives at their request – he performed euthanasia.

Frans Bollen, a 69-year-old retired doctor, presented the trainees with an alternate reality where "unbearable suffering" could be stopped overnight. The group was overwhelmed. Divided. GP’s do this? Could I do that for my patient? Do we do anything like this already in Ireland? One of the group, Dr Luke Dillon needed to know more, and in 2017 began to explore the area for a radio documentary.

In Ireland, assisting someone with suicide is a crime that can result in 14 years imprisonment. And yet there are people in Ireland who are suffering greatly as a result of illness and would prefer to die peacefully and with dignity.

Luke met with some who are hoping euthanasia will be an option for them - and he also met with palliative care experts who vehemently it. Luke also traveled back to Holland to meet up with Frans Bollen – and with relatives of people who have been euthanised.

Through exploring the topic of euthanasia, Luke examines a fraught and delicate area in Irish life. He’s left with more questions than answers. Should euthanasia be provided for people who desire it? How can anybody decide what constitutes ‘unbearable suffering’ for another person? Should euthanasia be extended to people who suffer from mental health illnesses as it is in Holland? And what does allowing euthanasia say about a society and the people in it? The ultimate ethical question for many is to decide between life and death.

27. Diary of a Pakistani Atheist TX: 02/12/2017 Dur: 26’29” Broadcaster: BBC World Service English www.bbc.co.uk/worldserviceradio Production Company: BBC Radio Production North

In March 2017, a High Court Judge in Pakistan made the dramatic declaration that “blasphemers are terrorists.” The declaration is just one part of a growing national campaign to make disbelief socially, publicly and morally not just unacceptable, but one that allows Pakistani people the right to attack those who doubt the importance of Islam.

Websites offer a satirical take on Islam and challenge the notion that Pakistan is an Islamic Republic, but the government replied with adverts in national newspapers and text messages to all Pakistanis, urging them to report those who express their online disbelief in God

Mobeen Azhar listens to the intimate, anonymous diary entries of those who call themselves atheists, but daren’t say so publicly.

He also ventures inside the secret meetings and parties safe havens for atheists to come together to hear how it is to live the life of a non-believer, in a country where religion is playing a bigger role in all areas of life.

28. Crossing Continents: Starting from Scratch in Uganda TX: 14/09/2017 Dur: 27’41” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Radio Current Affairs

Uganda has now taken in more than a million refugees who have fled civil war in neighbouring South Sudan. And more are coming every day. It's said that Uganda has the most generous refugee policy in the world, with new arrivals given land and allowed to work. But the majority of South Sudanese refugees are women and children who have lost almost everything and, as Ruth Alexander discovers, the reality of starting a new life from scratch is far from straightforward.

Presented by Ruth Alexander Produced by John Murphy.

29. Chaplains of the Sea TX: 13/05/2017 Dur: 49’30” Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: Just Radio Ltd.

Port chaplains provide support to the world's 1.5 million merchant seafarers. With the global shipping industry in financial crisis, Mark Dowd joins the chaplains on their daily visits to container ships and supply vessels in Antwerp, Immingham and Aberdeen, to find out why the work of chaplains is more crucial than ever.

Most of the seafarers that Mark meets are from the Philippines, India and Eastern Europe. Often away at sea for nine months at a time, they are missing their families. Chaplains distribute sim cards, newspapers and free wifi, offer free transportation into town and to the local seafarer centre.

Chaplains in Baltimore, Yokohama, Hong Kong and South Africa also describe coping with deaths at sea, piracy, and supporting unpaid crews who have been stranded in foreign ports for months at a time.

In March last year, global freight rates hit an all time low. Shipping capacity has outstripped global trade, bankruptcies are on the rise and the seafarers are the forgotten people in all this. In Antwerp, Mark discovers one vessel has been impounded since the owners have gone bankrupt and filed for insolvency. The crew is fast running out of food and the chaplains are asked to help.

In Aberdeen, Malaviya Seven, an offshore supply vessel from Mumbai, was detained in port for the second time in October 2016 for not paying the crew’s wages. By the end of March 2017, the situation remained unresolved - with the ship in port and the crew still unpaid. Chaplains are doing everything to help - but with so much practical work to do, is there any room for religion?

30. Dying to Talk TX: 26/04/2017 Dur: 50’00” Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: Audio Always

There's only one thing in life that's certain. Death.

But just how many of us speak about it in our daily lives? How many of us have left the conversation about it with loved ones too late? And if we did talk more about it, how could it help us come to terms with the inevitable demise of not only ourselves, but our nearest and dearest as well?

Hoping to combat this taboo are Death Cafes. A place where people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. The very first death cafe took place in 2011 in a living room in London and since then, has spread across the world with close to 4000 death cafes taking place in 40 different countries.

Across a one hour documentary, journalist Julian Keane visits some of these Death Cafes to discover how they help people to open up about the deceased and their own thoughts and fears about dying. He’ll also explore how different countries, cultures and religions can affect how we view death, and whether Death Cafes are the only answer when it comes to speaking about it.

Julian also meets Swiss sociologist and anthropologist Bernard Crettaz, the man who established a project called Cafe Mortel - the inspiration behind the modern Death Cafe movement. Bernard began the concept at an exhibition called 'La mort à vivre' (Death for life) in his Geneva museum and he shares more about his work, the theories behind it and how he feels knowing his ideas have given birth to a death positivity movement that has been embraced by the world.

31. Partition Voices - Programme 3: Legacy TX: 15/08/2017 Dur: 42’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Radio Current Affairs

Partition Voices was a landmark three-part series for Radio 4. On the 70th anniversary of Partition, Kavita Puri hears remarkable testimonies from British Asians. The division of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan resulted in one of the largest forced migrations the world has ever seen. Hindus and Sikhs moving to India, Muslims to Pakistan. Unspeakable violence against people of the "other" religion accompanied the displacement.

Programme 3 hears about the reverberations of Partition in Britain among the various religious groups within Britain's South Asian community: not just those who lived through it but also the subsequent generations. We hear how the memory of shared existence among people of different religions is what many survivors want remembered. And we also learn of the Vicar whose mission it is for schools across Britain to study Partition.

The series was critically acclaimed. It was pick of the week in the Radio Times and the choice in all of the broadsheets.

The response to the series was phenomenal. British people spoke of how they did not know about this part of their history, and British Asians – many thousands of whom are descended from families affected by Partition - also said how they knew little about this period, and how it explained so much hidden animosity between the various faith groups. People also said this fuller narrative showed that all faith communities suffered during Partition, and it began conversations within families. This was a project which had a wide impact and became part of the national conversation. The series also had a broader legacy, as the British Library will be archiving the many interviews recorded.

32. The Organ Beauty Pageant TX: 02/05/2017 Dur: 36’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Science

The Organ Beauty Pageant.

The ultimate survival of almost 30,000 people on dialysis in the UK depends on the kindness of strangers. Lives will be extended by the altruism of those who donate their organs after death, or, increasingly, by those who give up one of their kidneys while they are alive.

Living donors make up a third of all kidney transplants in the UK but the medical advances that made this possible have brought acute ethical conflicts and moral dilemmas which have shaken the transplant community to its core.

Because the long-established distribution method – the transplant waiting list - has been by-passed by those who’ve used social media to find strangers to donate their organs.

In The Organ Beauty Pageant, Lesley Curwen investigates the complex ethical and moral questions raised by these novel options to attract a donor, or trawl for a recipient. How do you balance someone’s right to use all the tools at their disposal to save their own, or a relative’s life, with the NHS ethos of fair access to transplants?

Lesley hears from transplant doctors and nurses who believe an unsavoury competition, nothing less than an online catwalk, has been created to attract a donor, and hears deeply-held concerns that only the tech-savvy will be able to jump the queue, while the most vulnerable still languish on the waiting list.

But who wouldn’t sympathise with the desperate mother who launches a Facebook campaign to persuade a stranger to give her dangerously-ill boy an organ?

From the living donor who wants to choose who will receive her precious kidney, to the free-market entrepreneur who tried to run an organ-matching website, Lesley explores ethical questions posed by social media and organ donation and finds out how UK regulators and the transplant community responded.

33. Neither There Nor Here: A Troubled Homecoming TX: 27/02/2017 Dur: 15’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: Whisteldown Production

This is the first programme in a series of five, in which writer and academic David Dabydeen recalls different stories of mass migration from recent history. David considers to what extent these migrants were affected by the circumstances of their departure - by the violence they may have witnessed or the economic, religious and political stresses they endured - and who bore responsibility for their ‘integration’ into new societies.

This programme tells the story of the Ethiopian Jews. Persecuted in the 1980s, tens of thousands were airlifted to Israel under that country's Law of Return. Housing, healthcare and education were all provided under a meticulous assimilation plan. Yet Ethiopian Jews remain the most disadvantaged group within the Jewish population. Many have been victims of racism and tensions have boiled over, resulting in clashes in with the police. And they face religious discrimination, too – some Ashkenazi rabbis have decreed that the Ethiopians’ ancient Judaic practices mean they are not properly Jewish at all.

Why has the homecoming to Israel been so troubled for the first generations of Ethiopians? And are there signs that younger members of the community are determined to improve their circumstances?

Produced by Hugh Costello

34. Reunited TX: 26/12/2017 Dur: 56’57” Broadcaster: BBC Radio Lincolnshire Production Company: BBC Radio Lincolnshire

Between September 1915 and December 1917 five of eight Beechey brothers were killed in WWI. “Reunited” aimed to both reunite Barnard, Frank, Harold, Charles and Leonard 100 years on with a journey of Remembrance across three continents, and also tell their story through their letters.

As the sons of a rural vicar faith was an important part of the brothers’ lives. Working in partnership with Lincoln Cathedral we created an act of remembrance for the brothers. The centre piece of this was six small crosses crafted from Lincoln Cathedral limestone. Combined with a prayer about the brothers, written by the Sub-Dean, four of the crosses were laid where brothers are buried or commemorated in France and Tanzania. A fifth is now on permanent display at St George's Cathedral, in Perth Australia, as one brother was killed fighting as an Anzac. The sixth, after a short service, was installed at the church in the village of Friesthorpe, where the brothers’ father preached until his death just before the war. The aim was to reunite the Beechey boys in remembrance but also take a small part of home to them.

The second part of Reunited was to tell the brothers stories. With excerpts from the more than three hundred letters and official forms that survive to this day, the show puts the listener in the place of the brothers’ mother Amy, who lived her boys lives and deaths through what the postman and telegram boy delivered to her home in Lincoln.

Reunited is a moving portrayal of one family’s loss underlining the importance of remembrance a century on.

35. Partition Voices - Programme 2: Aftermath TX: 08/08/2017 Dur: 42’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Radio Current Affairs

This programme hears first-hand accounts from British Asians and Colonial British of the turmoil and violence in the immediate weeks after India's partition in August 1947. The division of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan resulted in one of the largest migrations the world has ever seen. Over 10 million people who found themselves on the wrong side of the border sought refuge in one or other of the new dominions. Unspeakable violence accompanied the displacement, claiming up to a million lives, while tens of thousands of women suffered rape and abduction. Many of those who experienced the chaos have kept their silence ever since, such was their trauma. Yet those taking part in this series speak with remarkable clarity about the tumultuous events, whose legacy endures to this day within Britain's South Asian communities.

Aftermath, the second of three programmes, hears about the weeks immediately after partition took place. Muslims from India moved to Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs in the opposite direction. We hear eyewitness accounts of painful goodbyes, separations, and epic journeys; of ambushed trains crossing the new border, filled with corpses; and of the Punjab where people, of different faiths, who had lived side by side for centuries descended into an internecine war. And we hear the shocking ordeal of women, who risked kidnapping and sexual violence at the hands of men of the "other" religion; as well as stories of courage and humanity during this turbulent time. The programme was critically claimed and the choice in many national newspapers.

36. George Whitefield's America TX: 10/09/2017 Dur: 56’02” Broadcaster: BBC Radio Gloucestershire Production Company: BBC Radio Gloucestershire

George Whitefield was born in Gloucester in 1714. After gaining a scholarship to Oxford, and being part of the Holy Club with John and Charles Wesley, he was ordained at Gloucester Cathedral and gave his first sermon in the city. He went on to preach in churches and open spaces across England and the American colonies. In his lifetime he preached at least 18000 times and it’s estimated that millions of people heard his message.

Whitefield was the most recognisable face and voice in 18th Century colonial America. He reached out to the enslaved community, connected with a rising tide of individualism and established churches, schools and colleges that exist today. His teachings and peaching style gave rise to the evangelical faiths in America and around the world. His actions in challenging the establishment and empowering the people helped give rise to the stirrings of revolution.

Yet despite all of this, Whitefield is largely forgotten in his home City of Gloucester. There are no statues of him, just one building named after him and only if you know here to look will you discover a plaque detailing his links with the City.

Richard Atkins, a Methodist minister and broadcaster in Gloucester, set out to retrace Whitefield's steps in America. In this 56 minute documentary he tells the story of Whitefield’s journeys and the impact that he had on people from Georgia through to Massachusetts. He meets the people still influenced and guided by Whitefield's teaching and discovers that, unlike in Gloucester, the city of Philadelphia has a large statue of Whitefield at the heart of its Ivy League University.

George Whitefield's America was written & produced by Mark Jones. A sister documentary "George Whitefield's England" told the story of his early life and work in his home country.

37. Nathan Lino - The Extremes Churches In Texas Are Taking To Protect Congregations TX: 07/11/2017 Dur: 13’14” Broadcaster: Premier Christian Radio Production Company: Premier Christian Radio

Following the awful Sutherland Springs tragedy in Texas, Loretta chats with the President of Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, Nathan Lino, about what happened that weekend, and just some of the precautions and extremes Churches in Texas are taking to protect their congregations.

Nathan reveals some of the personal struggles and protection he's had to undertake in order to remain safe at church.

38. Growing Up A Soldier: Chelsea Pensioner - Alan Rutter TX: 09/11/2017 Dur: 14’57” Broadcaster: Premier Christian Radio Production Company: Premier Christian Radio

The 11th of November at 11am is the opportunity to pay respect and remember those who have died in battle. We fall silent for 2 minutes.

Here's a very special interview from a former soldier; his name is Alan Rutter and he’s a Chelsea Pensioner - who you may have seen from time to time on TV in their famous red scarlet jackets.

We spent some time with Alan recently and asked him to share some of his memories as a soldier, growing up and how he found his faith in that time.

Alan chats with Premier Christian Radio’s Chris Byland.

39. Stuart Hazledine - Movie Director of The Shack TX: 16/10/2017 Dur: 27’45” Broadcaster: Premier Christian Radio Production Company: Premier Christian Radio

Movie director Stuart Hazledine chats to Loretta about how he went about translating the bestselling book into a movie, and answers questions around some of the controversies which the film and book presents when it comes to faith.

The Shack movie, released earlier in 2017, has amassed more than $96million at the box office and is out now on DVD.

40. Living With Psychosis - World Mental Health Awareness Day TX: 09/10/2017 Dur: 41’02” Broadcaster: Premier Christian Radio Production Company: Premier Christian Radio

The 10th of October marks the World Health Organisations Mental Health Awareness Day, and to mark it Loretta chats to Emmanuel Owusu, a Christian who was sectioned under the 1983 Mental Health Act for having psychosis.

This honest account details his story of what led to the deterioration of his mental health, what happened during his delusions that made him believe he was God, and how he recovered in a psychiatric hospital.

41. Self-Esteem For Girls With Dr Claire Rush from Girls' Brigade TX: 27/04/2017 Dur: 21’28” Broadcaster: Premier Christian Radio Production Company: Premier Christian Radio

What affects self-esteem?

Dr Claire Rush is the Advocacy Co-ordinator for Girls’ Brigade Ministries and Vice-President of Girls Brigade International, joins Loretta to look at self-esteem among girls and young people in 2017.

She talks through some of the issues faced by girls today, and gives her thoughts on what the Church and we can do to build up self-esteem and confidence in young people today.

42. God And Ethics In The Army TX: 08/03/2017 Dur: 25’10” Broadcaster: Premier Christian Radio Production Company: Premier Christian Radio

Would you even consider looking at Army Jobs as a career - would it contradict your faith too much?

Listen to Revd Professor Philip McCormack, a UK Army Chaplain and its Lead on Ethics chatting with Loretta and giving us his thoughts on whether two very conflicting areas can ever find a rightful balance...

43. And Then There Were Nun TX: 21/07/2017 Dur: 27’30” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC

What is life like for nuns and monks today? With a lack of new blood coming into the traditional monasteries and convents, Bishop Martin Shaw supports some of these aging communities in their painful final days as they are forced to leave their homes. His role as an official visitor, is also to receive the vows of any new nuns and monks joining religious orders, and to hear the concerns and complaints from each community.

Sister Giovanna, Sister Clare and Brother Samuel, who are from different religious communities, recount what life is like for them today. They also share their experiences of dedication over the years from that first day in the chapel and hearing Gregorian chant, to outside keeping bees and pigs in the orchard. From teaching young children in inner cities to supporting the bereaved in hospitals.

We get a glimpse of life in this unique and rarefied world of devotion and commitment, and hear how these communities have changed over the decades. Bishop Shaw has also witnessed these changes. But although monastic life as it has traditionally been lived is unlikely to survive, there are signs of new religious life beginning to emerge within the church.

44. The Pity of War (Heart and Soul) TX: 31/03/2017 Dur: 26’29” Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: Kati Whitaker productions ltd

Two men meet , one a Catholic, the other a Protestant. Both were caught up on either side of the Falklands/Malvinas conflict .

For 35 years , Horacio Benitez struggled with the memory of having gunned advancing British soldiers. “You ask yourself how many fathers you have killed. And you ask yourself why?” He has made it his mission to visit Britain to seek forgiveness from British soldiers.

British army Chaplain David Cooper was a trained sniper. But his was also the voice of a man of God caught on the killing fields. “I didn't believe in a God who would divert the path of a bullet, but I could tell them that I believe in a God who has the power to care beyond death.”

For Cooper, there were dark moments, moments of anger and desperation as he witnessed the agonising death of a soldier whose wedding he had recently performed ...and being unable trying to save an argentine POW who died from horrific burns. “When the foundations of life shift, you have to reassess."

Presenter Kati Whitaker meets Horatio as he visits a Falklands war memorial in Britain – before meeting Cooper at Westminster Abbeys Poets corner as he ponders Wilfred Owen's memorable condemnation of the "the pity of war". Cooper tells how he still struggles to rid his mind of the horrors of war. Finally , in a spell binding climax to the programme the two men finally meet and try to make sense of their questions. But while Horacio finds forgiveness and some closure, Cooper questions why, while so many men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice for war, so little is given for peace. That's the real tragedy of war, he says, that’s the pity of war.

45. BBC Radio York Sunday Breakfast with Jonathan Cowap TX: 07/07/2017 Dur: 19’17” Broadcaster: BBC Radio York Production Company: BBC Radio York

This is a montage from the regular Sunday Breakfast show presented by Jonathan Cowap, produced by Richard Staples broadcast on BBC Radio York. First, drama from local York Theatre Company specially written for Radio York.

Archbishop Sentamu published a book of love stories following on from books about faith and hope. At the launch we heard Maureen Greaves powerful story about forgiveness and the death of her husband on Christmas Eve.

Our faith programme is outward looking and brings moral, ethical and faith eyes to national and local issues. Jonathan spoke to the lead bishop of the Church of England about the election and asked who would Jesus vote for?

On Christmas Day we reflected the importance of Jesus in Islam, with an interview and a rendition of the birth of Jesus from the Qur’an by a member of York Mosque.

St Mary’s Tadcaster hosted our carol service, the previous Christmas it had been under water from the floods and collapse of the bridge. This community event involved all three primary and the grammar school and people doing readings and telling their flood survival stories, the final broadcast piece included these stories interwoven into the recording of the service from a packed church.

Through the month of Ramadan we looked at some of the myths and lack of knowledge surrounding the month of fasting in a weekly series called Ramadan Rumours.

After the Manchester bombing, supporting the family of a York couple who were killed, the City Centre vicar spoke of the vigil she held and about forgiveness.

Finally an excerpt from our Carol Service.

46. Stations of the Cross (12): Jesus dies on the cross TX: 14/04/2017 Dur: 05’48” Broadcaster: Flame CCR (The Wirral) Production Company: GRF Christian Radio

Good Friday can be overwhelming for those who try to follow Jesus. For centuries, his followers have tried to find meaning in what has become known as the Stations of the Cross. Can contemporary life experience bring a new dimension to the 'stations'?

(One of a series) 12: Jesus dies on the cross

47. smallVOICE podcast – August 2017 TX: 05/08/2017 Dur: 58’32” Broadcaster: www.smallvoice.org.uk (podcast website) and via iTunes and TuneIn Radio Production Company: GRF Christian Radio

It’s smallVOICE for the month of August … Our media review this month is the uplifting documentary film Summer in the Forest about the L’Arche communities. We find out more about an iconic Welsh painting in our Thousand Words interview with Nerys Brown. And we feature our first ever mash up (oh yes) as our Music Guest is also our ‘small voice of the month’ – Vox Liminis. Finally, in our Moral Mixdown regular feature, the smallVOICE team reflects on the heartbreaking case of baby Charlie Gard.'

The smallVOICE podcast is a monthly mix of chat, music and features from the award-winning GRF radio team.

48. The Funeral Singer TX: 01/09/2017 Dur: 28’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: Butterfly Wings Productions Ltd

Synopsis The Funeral Singer

As death in Britain becomes more remote and sanitised a new industry is growing up around funerals and cremations turning them into events for the living rather than memorials to the dead - the professional wedding singer.

Music has long accompanied the religious and secular farewells to our dear departed but in the past was more likely to be a reserved for a select few - Kings, Queens and Archbishops with a cathedral choir singing a requiem mass to send them on their way.

In more recent times sophisticated sound equipment has meant that any song - usually performed by the artist that wrote it or made it famous - could be performed at a church service or crematorium funeral.

But increasingly the crematorium Wesley system a ‘juke box’ which can deliver virtually any piece of music ever written or sung, or for churchgoers, a simple CD or memory stick playing one of the top ten list of popular funeral songs [headed by the completely unsuitable My Way and Bette Midler's Wind Beneath My Wings] is not enough and for an increasing number of mourners only a real person singing increasingly sacred music will do to mark the passing of their dear departed.

Funeral singer websites and booking agencies - often a spin off from wedding singer providers - proliferate, all populated with a scale of charges, mileage rates and testimonials from satisfied customers confirming that the funeral would not have been as effective or as memorable without the singer.

Revd Kate Bottley talks to agents, singers, bereaved family members, funeral directors, clergy and a sociologist to discover why it seems that increasingly in a non church going society, only live music is good enough provide some form of meaning to the departure of a loved one.

49. Heart and Soul - Witness Protection TX: 30/06/2017 Dur: 26’29” Broadcaster: www.bbc.co.uk/worldserviceradio Production Company: Radio Production North

Jehovah’s Witnesses follow a strict interpretation of the Bible. It is supposed to shape every facet of the lives of its 8 million followers around the world.

Its beliefs set it apart not only from non-believers and other Christian faiths.

But what has emerged in recent years is an alleged catalogue of sexual abuse that has gone unreported and unpunished due to this adherence to the literal word of God.

David Cook meets the survivors of years of abuse who say their claims were ignored because of the lack of two witnesses to the crime, a major law of the organisation which it says is enshrined in the Bible.

Jehovah’s Witnesses deny they shelter any abusers but he will hear how some alleged abusers were allowed to remain part of the organisation because of the lack of witnesses.

He will also investigate how this insular worldwide community is responding to mounting pressure to turn over decades of testimonies which could expose thousands more cases of abuse.

50. Christmas lights "Switch on Nativity" TX: 25/11/2017 Dur: 05’35” Broadcaster: WCR Community Radio Production Company: WCR Drama

The station rose to the challenge of including a dramatised nativity within an outdoor Christmas lights switch on ceremony. The whole event lasted about 45 minutes and was to be witnessed by 3,000+ people. WCR engaged the town band and co-ordinated a drama group. The station then had the challenge of telling the whole nativity story for the benefit of the crowds, not exceding 6 mins. WCR writers wrote the script, rehearsed the actors then produced a drama with narration music and sound effects for the live actors to work with. Lights were borrowed from the local theatre and positioned in shops opposite the chapel of St Lawrence in Warminster where the whole event took place.on a specially constucted staging area. As the play concluded the live brass band played the intro to Hark the Herald Angels sing and the crowd all joined in to conclude the nativity. The lights were switched on exactly on time.

51. Halala: the Men Who Sell Divorce TX: 05/04/2017 Dur: 23’00” Broadcaster: BBC Asian Network Production Company: BBC Asian Network

‘Halala: The Men Who Sell Divorce’ is a unique undercover documentary, showcasing original investigative journalism at its finest. The BBC Asian Network’s Athar Ahmad produced and presented the programme, exploring the little known issue of halala – a custom believed by a small minority of Muslim women to be the only way they are able to reconcile with their husbands after a divorce. Athar’s investigation shed light on a practice which can result in the sexual abuse, financial exploitation and blackmailing of women by men charging thousands of pounds to take part in sham halala marriages. As part of the practice, women are charged thousands of pounds to marry, have sex with and then divorce a stranger, so they can get back with their first husbands.

The documentary also shed light on another controversial practice, ‘triple talaq’, which some Muslims believe enables a man to separate from his wife instantly by saying ‘talaq’ or divorce three times in a row. ‘Halala: The Men Who Sell Divorce’, uncovered evidence of triple talaq being performed in Britain regularly, including a woman who was divorced via text message.

Athar’s investigation spanned six months, during which time he discovered Facebook accounts offering the service in the UK. Posing as a divorced Muslim woman, Athar engaged with those behind the accounts, establishing relationships with men offering to marry and have sex with women for a fee and the capturing for the first time ever, substantial evidence of halala being carried out in the UK.

The investigation was extremely well received, being the most read news article on the BBC News homepage on the day of transmission. The documentary was also picked up by a number of other outlets both within the BBC and beyond, including the BBC World Service, Victoria Derbyshire programme and The Sun newspaper.

52. Being Muslim in Manchester - One Love? TX: 17/11/2017 Dur: 26’31” Broadcaster: BBC Asian Network / BBC World Service Production Company: BBC Asian Network / BBC World Service

Baktash Noori is a 23-year-old practising Muslim Mancunian YouTube vlogger. He lives just five minutes drive from the Manchester Arena where 22 people were killed by a suicide bomber. In the days after the attack his parents were warning him to stay off the streets, worried that the colour of his skin and his faith would make him a target for. Instead Baktash took to the Manchester streets, blindfolded, with a cardboard sign inviting people to hug him. The video of it he posted has been viewed nearly a million times.

Abdullah Vavdiwala was one of the many Muslim taxi drivers who also hit the headlines in the hours and days after the bombing for giving free taxi rides to anyone stranded in the wake of the bomb. Both are men of faith who personified the ‘One Love Manchester’ spirit. Athar Ahmad takes a trip round the city six months on from that horrific night with Baktash behind the microphone and Abdullah at the wheel.

They talk to 93-year-old Renee Black – the Jewish representative on the Blackburn Interfaith Initiative – whose tears in Albert Square as she stood next to her friend Sadiq Patel summed up the interfaith community’s response and became one of the iconic images of the city’s shared grief. They also discuss whether faith can withstand such a terrible tragedy with Gibran Awan and his two sisters, who were at the arena for the Ariana Grande concert on the night of the attack.

And they visit the Villa Road mosque in Oldham, fire bombed in the hours after the attack, to explore whether the ‘One Love’ response represents the real heart and soul of Manchester or if it’s a convenient veneer hiding the more unpalatable truth about our suspicions about Muslims and the knee-jerk association with terrorism.

53. Resurrection in the Round TX: 16/04/2017 Dur: 03’36” Broadcaster: UKRD commercial radio network Production Company: Reach Beyond

Resurrection is a theme which still resonates strongly in our ‘post-Christian’ society. In this short feature tailored for music-based commercial radio, Revd Professor David Wilkinson reflects on the relevance of resurrection thinking to the views, discoveries and achievements of science and technology.

He considers scientific views of the future of the universe, and intriguing possibilities in this domain suggested by biblical teaching on resurrection and new creation. The professor proceeds to contrast modern thought about progress through science and technology alone, with the Christian idea of a transcendent hope, rooted in Christ’s death and resurrection.

Professor Wilkinson has an easy accessible style, and communicates unfamiliar ideas in an engaging way. The feature also includes comments from the public around these themes, and is creatively mixed with appropriate music tracks and sound effects. Overall, it aims to encourage listeners to consider the hope of Easter in a new and challenging light.

Revd Professor David Wilkinson is Principal of St John’s College, Durham, an author, and regular ‘Thought for the Day’ contributor on the BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme.

54. The Funny Side of Christmas TX: 25/12/2017 Dur: 03’32” Broadcaster: UKRD commercial radio network (12 FM and 4 digital stations) Production Company: Reach Beyond

In a special three and a half minute feature for commercial radio, popular comedian Andy Kind gives his take on some of the funny sides of Christmas (family mishaps, Christmas telly, school nativity and carol service quirks). He proceeds to explore parallels between the life of a comedian - including exposure, vulnerability, unconventional hours and lifestyle - and the riskiness of the incarnation. The programme also features engaging comments from a parent and a few children. With appropriate music and SFX, the feature is designed to both put a smile on the face and prompt deeper reflection about the meaning of Christmas for a mainstream audience.

Alongside his stand-up comedy, Andy Kind is an author and has had numerous media appearances including with the BBC.

55. All Things Considered - The Importance of Touch TX: 03/09/2017 Dur: 27’46” Broadcaster: BBC Radio Wales Production Company: Religious Programmes Team, BBC Radio Wales

Of all the senses, touch is the one, it seems, we can least do without. It’s vitally important for our physical and emotional development. And, as we learn in this edition of All Things Considered, it has great spiritual significance also.

The programme was broadcast in the week of the twentieth anniversary of the death of Princess Diana, a person who had a particular gift of touch. She seemed to know instinctively when and how to reach out, give a hug, hold a hand. Relatively unusually for people in public life in her day, let alone in the ranks of royalty, she felt free to be tactile.

During the course of the programme we hear from people for whom the use and experience of touch has deep relevance in their lives believing it connects us to the core of our being - the neuroscientist who has explored the profound impact that touch has upon our development, why it is incorporated into so much of religious practice and cultural habits; the podiatrist whose work brings her close to the lonely who would never otherwise be touched; and the woman whose life was lived in fearful abandonment because of violent touch until she encountered the transformative benefits of therapeutic massage and who went on to pioneer work with single mothers.

56. All Things Considered -Silence TX: 01/10/2017 Dur: 26’58” Broadcaster: BBC Radio Wales Production Company: The Religious Programmes Team, BBC Radio Wales

Pointless, empty, even selfish? Or a valuable ancient practice we badly need to rediscover? The art of being silent is something which has been part of religious life for thousands of years; a discipline which can deepen faith and uncover important truths. But it’s something rarely found in our world, and most of us struggle to make space for it.

What does silence do? And how much do we need it?

In this edition of All Things Considered, the Rev Mary Stallard explores three silent traditions, asking what those who embrace them are looking for, and what we’re missing out on. She hears from Sara Maitland; a Catholic author and solitary who lives alone deep in rural Scotland, in (mostly) silent religious isolation; and Christine Trevett, Clerk of the Quakers in Wales. And she visits Simon Child, Teacher of the Western Chan Fellowship, a Zen Buddhist group running silent retreats at their farmhouse on a hidden hillside in mid-wales. There, she experiences the power of silence for herself – and shares the silence itself with us.

57. This Old Heart of Mine: The Sacred Heart TX: 05/12/2017 Dur: 27’50” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: Somethin' Else

In June 2017 The Reverend Giles Fraser had a heart attack followed by quadruple bypass surgery. His heart suddenly become very real to him in a way it never had been before, this was life and death stuff, and he has been was forced to look at changing his ways.

In ‘This Old Heart of Mine’ he sets out to find people – like his surgeon who held his heart in his hand - who can help him better understand the workings of this most resonant of organs. How can he live better with his quite literally broken heart? And how can he understand this most symbolic human organ in its broader context, negotiating a path from the pump, to the Valentine’s Day card emblazoned with the instantly recognisable two-curves-with-a-point-at-the-bottom, the shorthand for love?

Death is no longer decided by the stopping of the heart, but by brain death. The heart can be re- plumbed and even transplanted. And yet it retains a mystique, and is, for many of us, across culture and time, the place where we feel our ‘true self’ to be located, as well as the torch of our romantic passions, and our spiritual 'core'.

Recent research into the heart is tantalisingly suggestive of the idea that the heart is associated with emotion on a chemical level, might even be able to transfer memory during transplant. Did the Romantic poets have it right all along?

In this the third programme Giles meets Dr. Rowan Williams at his home in Magdalene College Cambridge. Giles is curious to look again at the iconography of the ‘Sacred Heart’ in its spiritual and historical dimensions, and at how the beat of the heart relates to prayer, poetry, and our sense of the rhythms and boundaries of our lives.

58. Unbelievable? My friend the atheist churchgoer TX: 07/01/2017 Dur: 82’00” Broadcaster: Premier Christian Radio Production Company: Premier Christian Communications

Unbelievable? is Premier’s weekly faith discussion show hosted by Justin Brierley that brings Christians and non-Christians together for engaging conversations on faith, belief, atheism, other religions, science, scripture and much more. The radio show also has a worldwide following as a popular podcast

Joe Ogborn is a Christian who has been going to church in Cambridge with his friend Tom Hallam for several years. But Tom is an atheist. Justin finds out about Joe and Tom's friendship, what impact going to church as a non-believer has had on Tom and how worshipping next to an atheist has affected Joe's faith.

They talk about the ups and downs of going to church and what it would take for Tom to believe.

59. Unbelievable? Is miracle healing for real? TX: 11/11/2017 Dur: 82’00” Broadcaster: Premier Christian Radio Production Company: Premier Christian Communications

Unbelievable? is Premier’s weekly faith discussion show hosted by Justin Brierley that brings Christians and non-Christians together for engaging conversations on faith, belief, atheism, other religions, science, scripture and much more. The radio show also has a worldwide following as a popular podcast

Christians as well as sceptics are often dubious of miracle healing claims.

Ken Fish trained under John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard Network, and now travels the world with Kingdom Fire Ministries to heal and train people. He believes thinking Christians should embrace the miraculous as part of their faith and that it can serve as a sign to sceptics of Christ's power.

Frances Janusz is an atheist who is sceptical of healing claims and concerned about the ethics of certain types of Christian healing ministries. She interacts with Ken on his stories of healing and we hear from two women, Victoria Bixby and Carol Grigg, who both say they were healed of serious conditions through Ken's ministry, with medical documentation to confirm it.

60. FutureProofing - Sin TX: 07/06/2017 Dur: 42’17” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: Radio Specials, BBC News

FutureProofing is the Radio 4 series that explores the ideas which will shape our future. In this episode, presenters Timandra Harkness and Leo Johnson find out how technology is changing our understanding of morality, and how social changes may create the circumstances for radically different moral values in future. Will sin disappear in future, as technology and a better understanding of human behaviour allow us to stop people from sinning before they act? And if sin does disappear, what would the consequences be? Producer: Jonathan Brunert 61. Something Understood – The Time of Our Lives TX: 23/07/2017 Dur: 27’41” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: TBI Media

A beautifully crafted piece of radio from a fresh and exciting voice in the world of religious broadcasting. With a powerful script, interwoven with carefully selected music and poetry, this programme sparked a wave of letters and emails from listeners who adored it and wished to pass on their appreciation.

In this episode of Something Understood Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand examines the many ways we measure time and its effect on us.

Over the course of the programme, Shoshana draws upon a wide range of sources, from Albert Einstein who argued that the separation between past and present is simply an illusion, to the poetry of the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma who urges us to live only in the moment.

With the help of Gustav Holst's The Planets, we revisit the moment of creation, when time and space were born. Shoshana notes that, while modern scientists theorise that time was created alongside the universe during the Big Bang, a similar claim was made centuries before in the Bible. Scripture doesn't state this explicitly, but the Bible uses the same Hebrew word, "olam", to describe both time and space - suggesting linguistically that they are similar phenomena. In general, "olam" refers to the physical universe, but it also can mean "forever" or "eternity." Shoshana explains that, whether one believes that the world was created through Divine Speech or a Big Bang, both science and the Bible agree that time and space are one.

For Shoshana, Joni Mitchell's Circle Game offers us valuable insight into the circular patterns that appear with the passage of time, while the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore reminds us that lost time is never truly lost. Finally, John Milton advises us to square off against time by placing our faith in the divine.

62. Something Understood – The Divine Feminine TX: 20/08/2017 Dur: 27’37” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: TBI Media

A deep, thoughtful and timely programme from a highly skilled religious broadcaster. In this programme, which was a huge hit with our audience, sparking a wave of positive feedback on social media and in the form of letters, journalist Remona Aly considers the multi-faceted power contained in the idea of the divine feminine.

From the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk, to the Kaaba in Mecca, Remona journeys through some of the religious and spiritual traditions which have venerated the feminine. In doing so she reveals the obscured influence of women in major religions.

Remona explains how her first encounter with the Quranic Maryam (the Christian Mary) - and how Maryam's status as a prophet of Islam - offered her a revelatory new perspective on her own religion and a radical new way of looking at religious traditions across cultures and throughout history.

Taking in the Native American creation story of Grandmother Spider, the mystical Jewish concept of Shekhinah, Beyonce's channelling of Oshun, a Nigerian Yoruba deity and the fierce spirituality of the Suffragettes, Remona demonstrates that the feminine divine has had many apparently contradictory faces - some soft and nurturing, others imperious, warlike and cruel.

She argues that it is vital for all of us, women and men, to recognise the legacy of the divine feminine, a legacy which transcends simplistic assumptions about gender and offers a return to a more balanced and humane relationship with the world.

63. British Classics - Special Christmas Choral Edition TX: 24/01/2017 Dur: 1 hour 57 minutes Broadcaster: Wycombe Sound 106.6fm and streamed on www.wycombesound.org.uk Production Company: Amanda Bolt for Wycombe Community Radio CIC

Amanda Bolt produced and presented this programme which was broadcast on Christmas Eve 2017 with the following two purposes:

1. To introduce new listeners to choral music but also take existing listeners of the genre into more unfamiliar repertoire

2. Use the example of more traditional seasonal carols with more recent composition to examine how the story of the nativity has been/is being told. Amanda has endeavoured to demonstrate this by selecting works that highlight the combination of text and music and the power it has to reach listeners and communicate a message when the right music is matched with the right text

Amanda was keen to combine her music selection with expert guests. Her guests for this programme was Iain Ledingham who is a Professor in the Vocal, Piano and Opera faculties at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Iain is also Founder and Musical Director of the Amersham Festival of Music, The South Bucks Choral Society and is Organist and Choirmaster at St James’ Church in Gerrards Cross. Iain’s commentary set the scene, giving a brief history of choral music. Amanda’s second guest was choral composer Bob Chilcott. Bob’s interview covered many areas of interest including the combination of text and music and the passion for choral music. Amanda continues to promote choral music through her British Classics programme which is broadcast 6-8 a.m. on Sundays. Amanda programmes 3-4 choral works each week and is keen to feature a mixture of traditional with more recent repertoire. Amanda also features local choirs where possible and her ‘Play A Part’ feature encourages listeners to join choirs by listing opportunities. Her classical what’s on also includes choral concerts.

Amanda engages with the choral community via social media and listening again figures are some of the most impressive across our schedule.

RUNNING ORDER:

Programme name: British Classics - Special Christmas Choral Edition, Amanda Bolt

Submitted by: Wycombe Community Radio CIC (Wycombe Sound 106.6fm)

Hour 1

Wenceslas Fanfare - Chilcott/Choralis

O Magnum Mysterium - Byrd/Chapel Choir Royal Hospital Chelsea Once in Royal David's City - Gauntlett/Chapel Choir Royal Hospital Chelsea

A Spotless Rose - Howells/Tenebrae/Nigel Short

In the Bleak Midwinter - Darke/Chapel Choir Royal Hospital Chelsea

Nativity Carol - Rutter/Cambridge Singers

Benedicamus Domino - P Warlock/Chapel Choir Royal Hospital Chelsea

On Christmas Night Parts I-XIII - Chilcott/Commotio/Matthew Berry

Hour 2

Mid Winter - Chilcott/Commotio/Matthew Berry

Jesus, Springing - Chilcott/Choralis/Todd Fickley

Wenceslas - Thank You - Chilcott/Choralis

The Lamb - John Tavener/Tenebrae/Nigel Short

The Little Road to Bethlehem - Michael Head/Chapel Choir Royal Hospital Chelsea

Mary's Lullaby - Rutter/Cambridge Singers

I Saw Three Ships - Rutter/Cambridge Singers

This is the Truth Sent from Above - Vaughan Williams/Sting Orch/Choir

Oh Come All You Worthy Gentlemen - Vaughan Williams/Sting Orch/Choir

On Christmas Night - Vaughan Williams/Sting Orch/Choir

God Bless the Ruler - Vaughan Williams/Sting Orch/Choir

64. Vegans TX: 29/01/2018 Dur: 23’00” Broadcaster: BBC World Service Production Company: BBC Radio Current Affairs

Why are more and more people giving up all food produced from animals? Mary-Ann Ochota explores if it’s natural for us to eat meat, and the impact on our health and the environment. She looks at how social media is helping spread the vegan message, the pros and cons of a solely plant based diet and whether eating meat today is ethical.

65. Fair Field Dream TX: 21/06/2017 Dur: 14’18” Broadcaster: The Guardian Production Company: Natalie Steed / Penned in the Margins

In episode one of a three-part series, the medieval ‘poem of crisis’ reveals a world of inequality, corruption and spiritual malaise that is all too familiar.

Welcome to a world where money matters. Where the gap between rich and poor has grown to a chasm. Where the moral certainties of the past are slipping away and the threat of apocalypse is never far from your mind. But this is not 2017. It is the world conjured by the 14h century poet William Langland in his surreal, hypnotic masterwork Piers Plowman.

Written almost 650 years ago, Piers Plowman enters the mind of a wanderer, Will, as he falls asleep in the Malvern Hills, dreams of a “fair field full of folk” and embarks on a quest to find Truth. In June 2017, a new site-specific theatrical production, Fair Field, reimagined this 7,000-line “poem of crisis” for the 21st century.

In the first of three original podcasts produced for the Guardian, Langland’s hallucinatory dreamscape is conjured through voices, texts and sounds that bring the modern and medieval together, revealing a society of inequality, political corruption and spiritual crisis that is uncannily like our own.

The podcasts which featured interviews with and commisisons from spiritual philosophers, participants in a homeless photography project, poets, musicans and academics were part of a wider project which included online courses, a live theatrical experience on the Malvern Hills and in London and an exhibition at the Poetry Library.

66. Roots and Holocaust: when TV taught us a history lesson TX: 06/05/2017 Dur: 56’13” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: 56’13”

Black journalist Gary Younge and his Jewish colleague at the Guardian Jonathan Freedland had two very different upbringings. But a strange coincidence binds them.

At the age of 10, long before they would become friends, their mothers sat them down and gave them a lesson in racism. But it didn't come from a book or documentary. It was the late 1970's and, in each case, the lesson came from a blockbuster TV mini-series. Gary was put in front of Holocaust – with the instruction that, “this is your story too”. Jonathan sat and watched Roots – and was told the exact same thing.

In this hour-long documentary, the pair explore what they learned all those years ago – about the shared bonds and empathy that exist between two very different minorities, each with its own long history of suffering, prejudice and persecution.

They speak of the common collective memory of slavery – the story told in Roots – which is simultaneously central to black identity and the defining narrative of Judaism, re-told through the Exodus story every Passover around the family Seder table.

They find connections in the religious rituals that marked key stages in their life, noting the echo between each other’s wedding ceremonies: the traditional jumping of the broom at Gary’s, the breaking of the glass at Jonathan’s.

And both discuss the expectations placed on members of faith communities or ethnic minorities, to act as “ambassadors” for their people – and the moral dilemmas that can result.

Via the archive of 1970s TV they grew up with, and through interviews with the likes of Lenny Henry, Maureen Lipman, Michael Grade and the original Kunte Kinte, actor LeVar Burton, they show that even those of very different religious or ethnic backgrounds have more in common than they might realise.

67. Pause For Thought - BBC Radio 2 - Contributor: Dr Jim Harris TX: 14/06/2017 Dur: 3’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 2 Production Company: TBI Media

The Chris Evans Breakfast Show is the most popular programme on BBC Radio; fast-paced, interactive and family focused, it’s listened to by over 6 million people every morning. Pause for Thought, at 09.20 - pretty much the last item on the show - must fit the format seamlessly.

One of Pause for Thought’s strengths is our willingness to listen to the perspectives of people of faith who aren’t necessarily members of the clergy or other religious authorities. We believe that this allows us to explore a more personal iteration of religious belief – reconciling the divine with the everyday - at a remove from the more dogmatic approaches to scripture that might be held by someone more comprehensively steeped in theology.

Dr. Jim Harris, an art historian, is a great example of someone who’s able to give a real insight in to his own relationship with the Divine. In this contribution, written only hours after breaking news of the Grenfell Tower disaster, Jim delivers a stirring call for unity.

In the face of a world that often seems cruel and capricious, Jim makes the case for God’s divine love of humanity, which acts in opposition to the apparent randomness of fate.

He points to a God whose ‘absolute faithfulness’ to us allows us to confide our worries, questions and even our frustrations to him, drawing on his endless supply of empathy and love.

We believe that Pause for Thought is at it’s best when we truly provide a service for our listeners. In this case, Jim’s words aim to aid in the national grieving process that has doubtless touched most of our 6 million listeners, acting as a balm while simultaneously offering a way for a deep sense grief to be felt and fully expressed.

68. Sunday Worship TX: 26/03/2017 Dur: 37’17” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Scotland / BBC Radio 4

Writer and broadcaster Anna Magnusson presented the fourth of Radio 4's Lent series on Mothering Sunday. Reflecting on Jesus washing his disciples' feet, Anna explored this reversal of roles, drawing on personal experience to reveal how caring for her mother towards the end of her life also reversed the expectations of their relationship, and reflecting on the moments which gave her strength.

69. Pause For Thought - BBC Radio 2 - Contributor: Remona Aly TX: 23/05/2017 Dur: 03’11” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 2 Production Company: TBI Media

Uniquely among national broadcasters, BBC Radio 2 - 18 times each week - stops other activity for moments of religious reflection called Pause for Thought. Our specially selected contributors are from varied backgrounds - journalists, clerics and even comedians from all the major faiths, share their thoughts, in 400 words, on a theme, on life, or on current events.

Occasionally, adapting to the Radio 2 landscape means working with the station to ensure that what we discuss on air is reflective of the public consciousness. Pause for Thought has a proven track record when it comes to quick, measured and empathetic responses to the events that make the greatest impact upon the national mood.

2017 was a tumultuous year in many respects, but May’s terrorist attack on the Manchester Arena was particularly traumatic in it’s targeting of innocent people, particularly the very young. This contribution from Remona Aly is a moving address to a nation still reeling, made all the more prescient considering her Islamic faith.

Without cow-towing to the Islamophobic voices across politics and the media that are so often emboldened by such attacks, she presents a viewpoint shared not just by the moderate majority of British Muslims, but the country as a whole.

Hers is a message of compassion and unity, which transcends religious mores. It is expressed in simple yet elegant language. She uses the words of the Persian Poet Shams Tabriz to round off her Thought, employing them as a salve in the service of a nationwide grieving process. Broadcast the morning after the attack, this segment amounts to an extremely timely embrace of the type of religious values that bring people together, rather than divide them.

70. The Ideas That Make Us: Hope TX: 17/04/2017 Dur: 13’52” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: Radio and Music Documentaries

The Ideas That Make Us is a returning Radio 4 series exploring the history of the most influential ideas in the story of civilisation. The award-winning historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes begins each programme with the earliest evidence of a single word-idea in Ancient Greek culture and travels both forwards and backwards in time, investigating how these ideas have been moulded by history and how they’ve shaped our human experience.

In this episode, first broadcast on Easter Monday 2017, Bettany examines hope and why it is an idea that's so important to us. Bettany visits a Buddhist Temple, The Palace of Westminster and the UK's largest food bank to find out why we're hard-wired to hope for the best.

The programme includes interviews with Classicist Paul Cartledge, Buddhist teacher and author of The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down Haemin Sunim, Conservative MP for Spelthorne Kwasi Kwarteng, and Michael Nixon and Brian Edden from the Newcastle West End Foodbank.

Bettany and I have made many editions of The Ideas That Make Us and this episode, especially the interview with Michael Nixon and Brian Edden, was the one that affected us most deeply. The audience response to it was equally profound, with one listener describing it as 'A moving and thought-provoking analysis of how hope and belief sustain us in our daily lives'.

71. Gaelic Lament - Remembrance TX: 12/11/2017 Dur: 30’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio Scotland Production Company: BBC Scotland

Music and poetry play a powerful role in Remembrance, and there is a deep and unique expression of loss found in the Gaelic tradition. Gaelic singers, Margaret Bennett and Julie Fowlis, shared their memories as living examples of this tradition, and carried the station's listeners towards the Remembrance Sunday silence.

72. A Living World Episode 1 TX: 19/06/2017 Dur: 02’00” Broadcaster: RTÉ Radio 1 Production Company: RTÉ Radio 1

Personal reflections on the current culture wars in Ireland.

73. A Living World Episode 5 TX: 23/06/2017 Dur: 02’00” Broadcaster: RTÉ Radio 1 Production Company: RTÉ Radio 1

Personal reflections on the current culture wars in Ireland.

74. A Square Dance in Heaven TX: 30/04/2017 Dur: 44’00” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 3 Production Company: BBC Religion & Ethics

Radio 3 launched its Reformation 500 Season in April 2017 with “A Square Dance in Heaven.” It was presented by the Rev Lucy Winkett, a former choral scholar and Bach enthusiast, who offered a sophisticated musical audience an appreciation of the ideas and theology behind the music of the period.

Tweeters and texters called it “wonderful,” “glorious,” “beautiful and informative.” The Spectator described it as “like a lively Lutheran sermon…an opportunity to reflect not just on Luther and Bach but on the meaning of belief.”

The aim of the programme was to open a window for a general Radio 3 audience on an often neglected aspect of the Reformation. Although the Protestant Reformation has traditionally been regarded as “the triumph of the word”, music for Martin Luther was an “inexpressible miracle.” His ideas about music and his hymns and chorales were the seedbed for the choral and liturgical works of Germany’s greatest composers including JS Bach. Many listeners would be familiar with the music in a secular setting but unaware of its theological significance.

The English and Scottish Reformations were untouched by this influence. It took until the 18th century for the Wesley brothers to do for England’s churches what Luther had done for German ones two centuries earlier. The Genevan Psalter brought congregational singing of a different kind to these islands, as Lucy and Diarmaid Macculloch demonstrate with their lusty rendition of the Old Hundreth.

Music for this programme was specially recorded with the choir of Caius College, Cambridge, conducted by Dr Geoffrey Webber. The producer was Rosie Dawson

75. Adoption TX: 21/10/2017 Dur: 07’16” Broadcaster: Premier Christian Radio Production Company: Premier Youth and Children’s Work Magazine

Every Saturday morning Premier Christian Radio broadcasts a ten minute interview with parents, family life experts and practitioners about various aspects of parenting and faith. We try to tie the content to current affairs such as Remembrance Day, A Level results and Halloween.

This short programme was broadcast on 21st October and was immediately available to listen online at https://www.youthandchildrens.work/Faith-at-Home/Radio2/Radio.

To mark national adoption week, the editor of Premier Youth and Children’s Work, Ruth Jackson, spoke to adoptive father, Tom Rutter, about why he wanted to parent ‘unadoptable’ children

76. Death Masks - The Undying Face TX: 14/09/2017 Dur: 27’39” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Religion & Ethics

Sculptor and musician Nick Reynolds has revived the art of creating death masks.

Coming across Oliver Cromwell's death mask on a school trip to Warwick Castle, Nick Reynolds instantly became fascinated with the idea that you can stare at the actual facial features of a historical person. He now owns the death masks of many famous people from Ned Kelly and Napoleon to Ken Russell and Ronnie Biggs. They decorate every wall in his flat-cum-studio but he views them not as a macabre way of remembering the dead but as "a kind of time machine".

In recent years, Nick has turned his artistic talents towards producing death masks himself and his portfolio includes the masks of William Rees-Mogg, Peter O'Toole and Sebastian Horsley. In this programme, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Peter O’Toole’s daughter Kate O’Toole and Sebastian Horsley’s former lover Rachel Campbell Johnston give their different reactions to the 'undying face' of the person they have lost. Nick also visits Highgate Cemetery to discuss our attitude to death with Dr Ian Dungavell - Chief Executive at Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust - and he describes the death masks which adorn the gravestones of his father and of impresario Malcolm McLaren.

We wanted to be more creative with the format and chose not to have a presenter but for the producer to record all the material and for her to be occasionally heard in the programme. We wanted the programme to appeal to the listeners on two levels – firstly about the art of making death masks and Nick’s relationship to them and those who commission them from him. Secondly to explore our relationship to death in a different way that might appeal to those interested in spirituality and the big questions of life.

Producer: Helen Lee

77. Beyond Belief Jane Austen TX: 05/06/2017 Dur: 27’30” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Religion & Ethics

Beyond Belief is unique to Radio 4. Each week it explores the nature and place of religion in today's world through a discussion on a single topic. It encourages challenging, stimulating and entertaining debate between people of faith. Its aim is to increase religious literacy and understanding among a general, largely non-religious, audience. It broadcasts 24 episodes a year. The presenter is Ernie Rea.

This episode was the first time Beyond Belief has gone to the Hay Festival. To mark the 200th anniversary year of the death of one of Britain's finest novelists, Jane Austen, the programme took the opportunity to look at the religious world in which she lived and how it is reflected in her novels. The programme set out to do two things in an entertaining way: to compliment other discussions at the Hay Festival and to provide a different perspective, which is often overlooked, on Jane Austen to the general Radio 4 audience.

Ernie Rea was joined by novelist and priest Marie-Elsa Bragg, the social and architectural historian William Whyte, Oxford University lecturer Freya Johnston and Rev Paula Hollingsworth, author of "The Spirituality of Jane Austen."

Producer: Rosie Dawson

78. Good Friday Meditation TX: 14/04/2017 Dur: 27’42” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Radio Religion & Ethics

In the final few days, Jesus knew that that he was going to be crucified. It was a lonely time because his closest friends were unaware of his fate and, when he needed them most, they fled.

But it wasn't just the actual abandonment of his friends but the perceived abandonment by God that intensified Jesus' loneliness and led him to cry out:

"My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?"

The final moments of Christ on the cross ache with abandonment and loneliness and in the Good Friday Meditation, the Rev Lucy Winkett explores these feelings in a 21st century context through conversations with a new mother, two older women who have suffered the loss of loved ones and a man whose faith has been challenged by his struggle with self-hatred.

Young mothers can feel isolated as they seek to come to terms with their new responsibilities and say goodbye to their old, independent life. Elderly people often struggle to come to terms with being alone as friends and partners die. But what about the rest of us struggling with jobs, families and finances? How is it that despite success, wealth and relationships we can feel lonely in the crowd?

Lucy Winkett investigates different types of loneliness and challenges our perceptions of what it means to be alone.

The Good Friday Meditation is commissioned by Radio 4 to mark one of the most moments in the Christian calendar. Each year a theme from the crucifixion forms the basis for the programme. It’s broadcast at 3pm. It’s crucial it appeals to the general, largely non-religious audience in a way that might encourage them to reflect on the experiences they hear and identify in some way with the universal themes of Christ’s passion.

Producer: Helen Lee

79. New Lives with Old Belief TX: 24/11/2017 Dur: 27’00” Broadcaster: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswcg3 Production Company: Natalia Golysheva

Old Belief communities formed as a result of Russian Orthodox Church theological reforms of the 17th century.

After a period of torture and mass executions and unrecognised by the state, Old Believers were forced to go underground or move to unreachable parts of this vast country, where they lived independent of state and official church. The Revolution of 1917 led to a further exodus – even as far as Latin America.

In the last decade, the population decline led the Russian government to invite families to return "home", to practice their faith in the land of their fathers, only to find fierce opposition from neighbours and local authorities.

Natalia Golysheva travels to the Far East in Russia to meet the Old Believers, who relocated here from Bolivia after a century in exile. Here, in Dersu village they find salvation in their own community, refute most technological advances and home school their children. Natalia takes part in the community’s rituals Old Believers have carefully preserved, but not before they also put her through an unexpected test.

Why is it important for them to return to Russia to practice their faith? Why continue to stay despite all the hardships?

Produced and Presented by Natalia Golysheva for Heart and Soul on BBC World Service.

80. 5 Live Daily with Emma Barnett TX: 06/04/2017 Dur: 3 hours Broadcaster: BBC Radio 5 live Production Company: 5 live Daily production team

BBC Radio 5 live Daily delights in taking our listeners to new places and revealing worlds they seldom see.

In 2017, we were thrilled to conduct a rare live broadcast from Stanbrook Abbey – home to 21 Benedictine nuns.

Across a three hour live radio programme hosted by the ever-curious Emma Barnett, we heard a whole range of candid conversations with women our listeners would never normally meet. Faith, life, men and kitchen cupboards: it was all there.

The inside view came after months of careful negotiation. We worked hard to gain the trust of Stanbrook, and a lot of pre-production work was done to make sure this was a positive and enlightening experience for everyone.

This wasn’t a static studio environment; the broadcast moves around the beautiful abbey, showing the richness of Stanbrook life, addressing the huge issues of faith and commitment, as well as the more pressing concerns: is that habit itchy? live’s younger C2DE listeners wouldn’t normally expect a religious or spiritual offering but they embraced our broadcast. Within minutes, they’d texted in questions which the nuns answered with good humour. This was intelligent, interactive radio at its best.

5 live’s remit is to cover the day’s news - and you’ll hear Emma deftly move from the convent to other news and back.

Finally you’ll hear Emma’s interview with Vicky Beeching. Each Thursday, we do an in-depth interview, featuring someone who has found themselves under the media spotlight. This was a chance to introduce Vicky’s faith story to a new audience in a way that’s far away from soundbite radio. We are enormously proud of our Stanbrook broadcast. We feel there was a real value in taking the time to introduce and understand modern life in a religious order by meeting the real women who live there.

RUNNING ORDER: As it is over three hours long, please find below the running order as requested. Please feel free to skip through all the news and sport bulletins and other news items. I have bolded and asterisked all the live Stanbrook Abbey items, in case that helps.

* 0959 BRIEF INTRO

1000 NEWS AND SPORT (sorry you’ll have to skip through this!)

* 1008 WELCOME TO STANBROOK ABBEY

* 1010 MONASTERY TOUR with Mother Andrea (“what’s in the cupboards – Cup-a-Soup? Digestives?”)

* 1017 BECOMING A NUN with Sister Josephine and the youngest nun Sister Marian (“is that habit itchy?”)

1033 NEWS AND SPORT

* 1039 WELCOME BACK

1041 OTHER NEWS (school fines)

* 1046 DAY IN LIFE with Sister Julian (a tour), Sister Benedicta and Mother Joanna + listener questions (the nuns note that Emma misses early prayers)

1100 NEWS AND SPORT

* 1108 WELCOME BACK

1109 OTHER NEWS (school meals, welfare, school fines) – skip through this

* 1122 MOVING A MONASTERY (establishing Stanbrook Abbey here in 2009 – Mother Andrea and Sister Josephine (some sisters are Manchester United fans))

1132 NEWS AND SPORT

* 1138 WELCOME BACK (tips for the Grand National!)

* 1140 SISTER SCHOLASTICA (portrait of her life in the Abbey)

* 1151 LISTENER QUESTIONS with Sisters Josephine, Benedicta and Scholastic (including “Is your life a waste?”)

1200 NEWS AND SPORT

* 1207 HEADING TO MASS with Sisters Laurentia and Agnes

1215 OTHER NEWS (Syria, Gender pay gap, York flooding)

1232 NEWS AND SPORT

* 1238 VICKY BEECHING, Christian singer and songwriter, on her journey coming out as a LGBT Christian

* 1255 GOODBYE TO THE NUNS including final montage and Mother Andrea

1300 OFF AIR

81. Hardeep's Sunday Lunch - Inverness TX: 01/10/2017 Dur: 27’25” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Radio Religion & Ethics

Hardeep Singh Kohli travels around the UK cooking Sunday lunch for people with remarkable stories. In this episode, he was in his native Scotland to cook lunch for Inverness based friends Colin Campbell and Rona Tynan.

Colin has lived with primary progressive multiple sclerosis since his 30s and at the age of 56 made the decision to end his life at a Swiss Clinic rather than face an unbearable, lonely decline. Hearing his plight, fellow MS patient Rona Tynan felt compelled to get in touch with him. The former London Met police officer has lived with MS for 12 years and she felt distressed that Colin wanted to end his life, especially when he was more able than her.

In June 2017, when Hardeep turned up at Rona's door to make the pair of them a haggis curry, Colin still had an appointment for the Swiss Clinic in his diary. Was Rona able to talk him out of it?

This series is broadcast when many listeners are eating lunch. The idea of the format is for the listener to eavesdrop on a conversation Hardeep is making lunch and then the contributors eat that lunch. The audience feedback we have had to the most recent series be summed up by this comment: “This made me stop stock still in the kitchen and weep. Touching beyond belief – so honest and humbling. Great, great radio.” Brilliant and moving.”

Producer: Helen Lee

82. Daybreak – Act of Worship TX: 06/08/2017 Dur: 29’52” Broadcaster: BBC Radio Merseyside Production Company: Helen Jones - BBC Radio Merseyside

In August 2017 Liverpool marked the centenary of the death of perhaps its greatest hero, Noel Chavasse VC, the only British serviceman to be twice awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry during World War One. And he won them without firing a shot.

For this Act of Worship ex Army Padre and proud Liverpudlian Fran Myatt took listeners on a journey through Chavasse’s Liverpool, telling the story of his upbringing in the city – he was the son of the Bishop - and remembering his sacrifice.

Padre Fran visited Liverpool College where Chavasse and his brothers were star pupils. He recalled Noel’s achievements on the playing field - he was to represent Great Britain at the 1908 Olympics - as an example of “muscular Christianity.” Listeners heard of young Chavasse’s work with the Liverpool poor and of his role as a doctor in a city hospital before he enlisted as an army medical officer on the outbreak of war.

His courage under fire in appalling conditions earned him a VC at the Battle of the Somme and another at Passchendaele where he was mortally wounded. Using extracts from Noel’s letters from the front, listeners learned how Chavasse tended to, and was loved by, the men in his care, an example of Christian faith in action.

Padre Fran stops off at local memorials to Chavasse, including the small park named in his honour at the heart of the Liverpool One shopping centre. We discover if the name of Chavasse means anything to today’s Liverpudlians.

The programme includes some of the hymns which Chavasse would have known and which endure to this day, honouring the sacrifice of the nation’s war dead.

83. Sacred River TX: 26/11/2017 Dur: 6 hours Broadcaster: BBC Radio 3 Production Company: BBC Radio Religion & Ethics Radio (music, written text, online content and podcast), with Radio 3 Interactive (social media, images).

Click here for full running order

Radio 3 explored the sacred and spirituality in music with a six-hour long, uninterrupted stream of music. It was introduced by Neil McGregor complementing his Radio 4 series ‘Living with the Gods’. The Times gave “Sacred River” a glowing 4* review describing the broadcast as ‘A divine experience…’ and the musical choices as ‘wonderful’ and ‘radical’.

‘On Sunday, Radio 3 demonstrated not just its ability to create an invisible yet very real connection between its community of listeners but also how it’s possible to make the best use of digital while retaining the values developed under the analogue regime… Sacred River created a continuous stream of music throughout the day without any presentation or contextualisation… (The Spectator)

“Touching on the spiritual side of life which so many encounter through music, no matter what their beliefs, Sacred River explores the influence of different faiths and traditions on Western music.

Showcasing music spanning all periods and inspired by different world faiths, this seamless flow of music leads the listener though the major themes of religion and belief, encompassing the whole gamut of human experience of the divine.

We begin with the wonders of creation and the cosmos, and as darkness is dispelled, the theme of light emerges. This leads into music inspired by nature. From there the pieces chosen explore the concept of love, before turning the focus to ritual, the contemplative and meditative part of the human condition – as well as the joyous and ecstatic.

We finally turn our thoughts to life, death and beyond, with music that explores transience, human mortality and beliefs about the world to come.

As each new section begins, listeners will hear the sacred sounds of a range of world religions.

Full programme info from R3 Sacred River website. Twitter reaction: https://twitter.com/i/moments/934779533412175872

84. Daybreak - Act of Worship TX: 26/11/2017 Dur: 57’18” Broadcaster: BBC Radio Merseyside Production Company: Helen Jones - BBC Radio Merseyside

BBC Radio Merseyside is the most listened to BBC local radio station and in November 2017 it celebrated its 50th birthday. The station’s Sunday morning show Daybreak devoted its weekly Act of Worship to a special programme celebrating BBC Radio Merseyside’s first half century, with special emphasis given to the role of faith broadcasting during this time.

BBC Radio Merseyside doesn’t just bring its listeners news, sport and music. It’s been a much-loved source of laughter, debate and companionship for the community it serves. The Act of Worship drew on the station’s archive to paint a portrait of a region which has known more than its fair share of ups and downs since 1967.

The station’s presenters reflected on what Radio Merseyside means to them and to their community of listeners. The programme reminders of the great public service which the station provides each day. It was an opportunity to reflect and to give thanks.

Liverpool - perhaps more than any in Britain – remains a city of faith. This programme looked back at its biggest-ever outside broadcast, covering the visit of Pope John Paul II to Liverpool in 1982. We were reminded of the great work done by Bishop David Sheppard and Archbishop Derek Worlock, as they moved beyond the city’s traditional sectarian divisions. Their successors – Bishop Paul Bayes and Archbishop Malcolm McMahon – took part in the programme and shared special prayers. And we acknowledged the great diversity of faith and belief that exists on Merseyside today.

In the words of veteran BBC Radio Merseyside presenter Billy Butler, we’ve been “in listeners’ ears for 50 years.” We’ve also been in their hearts and souls, and we sought to reflect this in our Act of Worship.

85. Beyond Belief – Khadijah TX: 11/09/2017 Dur: 27’30” Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 Production Company: BBC Religion & Ethics Radio

It is said that behind every great man there is a great woman. The Prophet Muhammad was married many times; but for 25 formative years, he remained faithful to one woman, Khadijah. She is widely recognised as the First Muslim. But we know very little about her. We know she was a successful business woman, she was considerably older than Muhammad and it was she who proposed to him. In this edition of Beyond Belief we brought 3 Muslim women and an Iman together who are fascinated by the figure of Khadijah in different ways to disentangle the facts from the myths surrounding her life and to discuss why she can be a powerful role model for women today.

Beyond Belief is unique to Radio 4. Each week it explores the nature and place of religion in today's world through a discussion on a single topic. It encourages challenging, stimulating and entertaining debate between people of faith. Its aim is to increase religious literacy and understanding among a general, largely non-religious, audience. It broadcasts 24 episodes a year. The presenter is Ernie Rea.

This episode was a way of bringing an important figure in the history of Islam to a non-religious audience who might have not even heard of her. It also brought some new voices to the network

Joining Ernie Rea to discuss Khadijah were: Fatima Barkatulla an Islamic scholar who has recently written a children’s book about Khadijah Rania Hafaz, Senior Lecturer in Education at Greenwich College and Fellow of the Muslim Institute Asad Zaman, a Manchester based Imam Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Inter Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Producer: Amanda Hancox Researcher: Beena Khetani