St Paul's Cathedral

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. How can it possibly be that God dies, and what can it teach us about how to live? Graham Tomlin, Dean of St Mellitus College, London, explores how the mystery of the cross can shed new, life-giving light on the way we live today. Recorded April 2014.

Professor Burridge, Dean and Professor of Biblical Interpretation of King’s College London, is one of the foremost Biblical scholars of our time, and this book grew out of ten years of academic research into the gospels, but also his desire ‘to bridge the gap between the prayer cell and the seminar debate’. For anyone intrigued or puzzled by the differences between the gospels, this is a revelatory reading of the four portraits of Jesus we are given in the New Testament. Recorded 2 March 2014.

The Reverend Richard Coles is a parish priest and regular host of BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live. He is also the only vicar in Britain to have had a number 1 hit single: the Communards' Don't Leave Me This Way. Fathomless Riches is his remarkable memoir in which he divulges with searing honesty and intimacy his pilgrimage from a rock-and-roll life of sex and drugs to a life devoted to God and Christianity. Recorded 11 November 2014.

Two of the most exciting, prophetic voices in 21st century Christianity, who both found God in the grit of real life, on the streets of the cities they live in, and in the joy and pain of the people they serve and love. Sara and Nadia reflected on their own unlikely experiences of coming to faith, and how we can live the gospel in the new world of the 21st century. Recorded 28 August 2014.

An ancient Christian tradition which originates on fringes of the Christian world, ‘it is refreshing to discover the role that art, storytelling and poetry played in the religious faith of the Celts, and it is perhaps this which enables us to feel such resonance with the Celtic past and spirituality.’ Dr Esther de Waal has a worldwide reputation as a writer, speaker and retreat leader, particularly on Celtic and monastic spirituality.

St Paul's Chancellor, Canon Mark Oakley, discusses the difficulty in reconciling the realities of life with easy and comfortable notions about faith. He reflects on faith as a collage of traditions, texts, and the myriad experiences of living, imagination, silence and prayer by which we respond to the grace of God. Recorded March 2013.

How can we change the world? Many of us feel helpless in the face of the world’s problems to change anything, and that it takes an exceptional person - a hero and or a saint - to make a difference. Michael Battle is the Founder of the Peace Battle Institute. Rowan Williams is Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge and former Archbishop of Canterbury.

The 1914-18 war was the war to end all wars. Since then, countless millions have died in conflict, and it’s debatable whether there’s been a single day of peace.Stanley Hauerwas is Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School. Samuel SSF is the Brother-in Charge of Hilfield Friary, the Anglican Franciscan community in Dorset. Recorded October 2013.

Generosity could save the world. There is enough food and money for everyone on the planet if we took only what we need and gave the rest to those who have too little. But can we actually change our hearts, minds and politics enough to do that? David Lammy is the MP Tottenham. Lucy Winkett is the Rector of St James’s Piccadilly. Recorded Oct 2013.

What is freedom? Aung San Suu Kyi, speaking under house arrest in Burma, said to the outside world in 1997: Please use your freedom to promote ours. But what does it mean to be free? Shami Chakrabarti is Director of Liberty, the National Council for Civil Liberties. Peter Selby is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Theology at King’s College, London and a former Bishop of Worcester. Recorded October 2013.

Janet Morley calls the season of Advent ‘a pilgrimage of the heart’, a time for stillness and contemplation. She invites us to contemplate its themes of darkness and death, light and new life with some of our greatest poets, including George Herbert, Emily Dickinson, Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath, TS Eliot and William Blake, in the hope that when the great feast of Christmas comes, we too will have ‘walked haphazard by starlight straight into the kingdom of heaven.'

For more than half a century, C S Lewis' Narnia series has captured the imagination of millions. Alister McGrath, Professor of Theology, Ministry and Education at King's College London, tells us that behind the best-selling books and Hollywood movies lies the unlikely story of an Oxford don who spent his days teaching medieval English Literature, his nights writing a best-selling fantasy series for children, and who became an inspiring, though reluctant, prophet of modern Christianity. Recorded April 2013.

Mark Barrett, a Benedictine monk at Worth Abbey, opens up the life of a 21st century monk in the hope that ‘the reader would find that we monastics – so often the shadowy medieval figures of media-gothic – are in reality fellow-seekers, apprentices training among the tools of a spiritual workshop’. He explores the spiritual journey made each day in the cycle of the ancient monastic offices, from Vigils before dawn to the night office of Compline. Recorded Nov 2013.

The remarkable English painter Stanley Spencer produced a series of works entitled Christ in the Wilderness, portraying the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness. Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford, reflects on some of Spencer’s Christ in the Wilderness paintings, inviting us to slow down and enter into the stillness of Stanley Spencer’s vision as a rich source of spiritual wisdom and nourishment. Recorded Feb 2013.

The Trinity is one of the most difficult ideas in Christianity to get to grips with - everyone from St Augustine onwards wrestles with it, and Trinity Sunday is notoriously many preachers’ least favourite day of the year. The Revd Ian Mobsby is Priest Missioner at the Moot Community in the Diocese of London. Recorded June 2013.

The Revd Jane Maycock gives a talk on her book 'Windows on a Hidden World' as part of the Sunday Forum series at St Paul's Cathedral. Recorded December 2012.

Rt Revd Richard Harries illustrates the relationship between Christianity and the decisions we make, drawing on the biblical theme of Divine Wisdom and the radical teachings of Jesus. Part of the Sunday Forum series held monthly by St Paul's Forum at St Paul's Cathedral, London. Recorded in March 2012.

The first session of the St Paul's Forum Autumn series 'The Case for God' - held under the dome of St Paul's Cathedral. Recorded September 2012.

Timothy Radcliffe OP, former Master of the Dominican Order, speaks on the topic of his book 'What is the Point of Being a Christian?' at St Paul's Cathedral. Part of the series of events hosted by St Paul's Forum entitled 'The Case for God'. Recorded November 2012.

Karen Armstrong, acclaimed author and religious scholar, speaks at St Paul's Cathedral on the topic of her book The Case for God as part of the St Paul's Forum autumn series of events. Recorded October 2012.